Topic: Darkfall: New Dawn - Roadmap and Features: All information in one location. (Read 12612 times)previous topic - next topic

Darkfall: New Dawn - Roadmap and Features: All information in one location.

April 04, 2016, 11:55:13 am

-= Darkfall: New Dawn =-The following is all the information given to us about Darkfall: New Dawn by the developers in one central location. This includes everything from the Game Mechanics page and every page linked to from there and also all the details from the Roadmap page. This is done in order to consolidate all the information into one easy to read place.

Table of Contents

General

Business Model

InDev Server

Balance Betas

First Development Drive

Social Interactions - Alignment

Player Progression

Daily PVP Activities

Player Housing

Clan Warfare

Player Holdings

Racial Warfare

Vehicles and Travelling

Economy

Interface and Various Improvements

Key

Grey Titled CategoriesThis is main category and can be found in the "Contents" section in which may or may not have a number of subsections for its category.

Red Titled Sub-SectionsA red title means that it is a subsection for a Category but only contains bullet point notes.

Green Titled Sub-SectionsA green title means that it is a subsection for a Category but contains detailed notes, and sometimes bullet point notes as well.

Primary Flaws

Lack of Daily Activities

Detailed Notes

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After much discussion, this is the one item that bubbled up to the top of our priority list. The way Darkfall ended was that players would remain subscribed and would log on for sieges or massive events but would not come daily to "live" in the world. This caused a vicious circle of inactivity leading to the downfall of the game.

As MMOs are mostly social experiences, a game that does not give individual players a reason to log in daily cannot strive. A clan or a faction requires a critical mass in order to have a snowball effect of game interactions.

If you're not online, how can you meet with that recruiter? How can you be there when you are called to defend against an enemy raid? Or when someone offers a boat ride to adventures?

A motivation for a lot of the changes we'll be working on is to give individuals a reason to be online and have selfish ways for them to need other players. An MMO should be on your mind everyday, at work, in transport, while speaking to your loved ones, in those minutes before sleep and especially when wondering what to do with your free time.

The Power Gap and Player Progression

Detailed Notes

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The second point we want to work on is the power gap. It was certainly one of the most popular subject of discussion back in the days. We believe that the way it was addressed then was a mistake as it removed gameplay rather than making it more interesting. It also cut down the long term appeal of the game which in turns reduced the daily activity for the game.

We will be using a three pronged attack to tackle this issue. First we'll properly reduce the actual power gap. We want a maxed out character to feel stronger than a newer character but not overwhelmingly so. We also want to add drawbacks to being powerful or using powerful gear.

We assume that as a player increases in character strength, he also increases in player skill. We want to make veteran players lives more interesting by adding risk vs reward calculation and more decision making in their play sessions. An example of that approach that you're already familiar with is gear effectiveness increasing linearly while gear costs increase exponentially.

Secondly, we'll work hard to make PvE, and the overall progression, actually fun. This goes along with wanting to have more daily activities. If players have the choice of multiple alternatives leading to the same end, then there are more chances for them to find a way they enjoy. Or simply to see variety.

And finally, Darkfall's progression offered no actual choices. You had to raise everything at the same time in order to be viable. We want to add long term strategic choices for players when creating a character. At the core, Darkfall was amazing for its freedom, and that is not something we intend to damage, but we want to offer alternative routes for more specialized roles that reach max effectiveness earlier.

The Lack of Positive Player Interactions

Detailed Notes

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We could also have called this "no sense of community" or no "feeling part of a world" so much that this flaw was abstract in its cause yet so very concrete in its symptoms.

An example is how the only choice was to always attack or flee whenever meeting something that moves. That culture is what pushed away many of the "virtual world" players and ended up harming the game more than it helped it.

We want to enable players to still play by those rules if they so wish, no safe zones here, but we want to give strong incentives to have positive interaction with other players. This means more occasion where players become natural allies rather than enemies in competition.

We want players to be happy to see other players, even strangers. We want "bandits" to be legendary and feared by the masses. We want "wolves" and "sheep".

Secondary Flaws

Multi-Threading and Performances

Detailed Notes

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This is self explanatory. Darkfall was impressive back in 2009 with its sieges and great performances for what it provided, but we believe there is room for improvement. Once we see the codebase, we'll see what we can improve and refactor. And despite the nostalgia it provides, we'll try to tackle the loadlag issue. Yes, having a player radar was a fun oddity, but it was the source of a lot of issues and needs to be fixed.

Race Differences

Detailed Notes

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Darkfall has an interesting set of races, but unfortunately they were functionally too similar to be interesting gameplay wise. We'll be working on differentiating them at multiple levels in order to make every engagement unique and game style be a factor in choosing a race. Mahirim four legged mode incoming.

Alignment System

Detailed Notes

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This was exploitable and had very little purpose and failsafe. We will work to get the blue status and red status to actually mean something in game. This will contribute to resolve some of our main flaws, but was important enough to have a separate mention.

Racial Wars

Detailed Notes

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As a logical conclusion to the two previous points, we want racial wars to actually exist in game. Some of the fondest memory of the original launch were of getting raided by enemy races and defending, or running away, as a whole with the other inhabitants of NPC cities. Racial wars are an invaluable tool to offer entry level PvP and get newer players hooked on the game and feel part of a community.

Player Holdings Value

Detailed Notes

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Aside from the bragging rights, their geographical position and their specific nodes, player holdings were often not valuable enough in our opinion. We want to make them worth fighting for and provide an appropriate return on investment.

We also want to turn them in social hubs where players can do trading, crafting, training and just socialize all day long. We'll also add more customization. For instance, choosing the racial style of the buildings or having some slots for new buildings we'll implement alongside new mechanics.

Localized Resources and Local Banking

Detailed Notes

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This is something we always wanted to see in the game in order to promote trade and emergent gameplay. The tools were always there and we are certain that just a few tweaks would make it work. It has been done before, and it would translate well in Agon.

Finishing Half Implemented Systems

Detailed Notes

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For this, we have trade routes and player housing in mind. Both can be great tools for materials and gold sinks and provide daily activities to players. We also think that the meditation system could have a use in order to encourage players to work together and just come online often enough to maintain it.

1. General

Bullet Points,

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New Dawn is empire building and conquest oriented.

We aim at making Darkfall an heroic fantasy equivalent to Eve Online.

9 months estimated of development before final launch.

InDev server during that period with progressive changes and wiped at the end.

This system is used for modifications we've been doing to the game and serves as the core of our improved alignment system. It's purpose is to let us determine if you are part of a battle and on which side you are on. The scale system enables some soft handling of accidental friendly fire and avoid easy disengaging. It will help us handle situations such as one member of your group or an allied clan is being attacked by an enemy you do not have in common. You should be able to help him honorably, without losing alignment.

Perhaps you've done most of the work on fighting off a raid of bandits and yet, did not get the kill ? No matter, you still will receive positive alignment for your brave deeds. Or if you helped the bandits instead, you will get engaged on their side of the battle and share all their alignment losses.

As you can see, our alignment system is more precise than the original one. But why would you want to remain blue if it doesn't disadvantage to be red ?

Benefits of Being Blue

Overview,

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"One of our biggest gripe with the original Darkfall is that the population took an habit of not caring for their fellow race members. Whether you were of the same blood or unable to breed, the first reaction of a Darkfall player is to kill whoever they meet and take their stuff."

Detailed Notes,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

One of our biggest gripe with the original Darkfall is that the population took an habit of not caring for their fellow race members. Whether you were of the same blood or unable to breed, the first reaction of a Darkfall player is to kill whoever they meet and take their stuff.

So we chose to give incentive in loyalty and cooperation:

In their racial alliance territory, blue players will receive various buffs

Racial NPC cities will rent cheap apartments to blue players.

Racial NPC cities will have market places where blue player can hire vendors to sell their wares.

A good deal of repeatable quests where rewards are tiered by comparing the duration of your blue status.

Some monster spawns will have increased skill up modifiers for blue players.

Your clan and alliances will also be judged when determining if you are blue or not. Darkfall allows players to form "All Races, All Classes" clans, otherwise know as ARAC clans. This is another example of freedom we intend to keep in New Dawn, but balance with some drawbacks. You will lose racial buffs and the ability to rent/hire in town if your clan is allied with ARAC clans, and being part of an ARAC clan will make you go rogue permanently.

Also, thanks to the engagement system, if you're engaged in a fight on a racial enemy's side, you will go rogue for the duration of your engagement allowing players to defend themselves without losing alignment and guaranteeing you'll get consequences for your actions.

One interesting thing is, holdings of racial clans or racial clan alliances are considered part of the racial alliance territory, so they will have additional zone buffs compared to ARAC holdings. But ARAC holdings will have other advantages, we'll come to it much later. We'll also outline later how we'll flesh out the housing system to make apartments valuable and what type of buffs racial territory will provide.

Anyway, that's not fixing everything, see, part of the problem is that players in Darkfall do not need each other. Doing PvE as a group was even an hindrance.

7. Player Progression

Grind as a Tool

Detailed Notes,

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The grind was indubitably the most complained about thing about the original Darkfall. Why would anyone in their right mind want to use it as a tool?

It is our opinion that the issue never was addressed and that the duration of the progression system was not the issue. Instead we believe that the power gap was the actual root cause of that barrier of entry players felt after playing for a while. The lack of player specialization was somewhat at cause too, but we'll address that in its own section.

This was made worse by the fact that PvE as a group was not the most efficient way to progress. Being forced to solo or duo most of the time is a weird state of mind to be in when playing an MMORPG. But why should you tolerate someone else stealing your skillups and loot when you can handle most spawns alone?

Well this is our answer: We shall use the grind as a common foe to unite them all! Our reasoning is that PvE as a group creates strong social bonds, especially when others are an asset rather than a liability.

Stats, Skills and Abilities

Overview,

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"All stats will get the same diminishing returns treatment that health received. Stat debuffs will be changed to remove percentages rather than flat numbers. Gear tiers will have large increases in cost for small increases in effectiveness. We will also smooth out the way skill effectiveness improves. Rather than having only every 25 levels be meaningful, each individual point will add something. This will have a huge impact on the psychology of a play session and should provide positive feedback at a decreased interval."

Bullet Points,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

All stats will get the same diminishing return as health.

Debuffs will be changed to remove percentages rather than flat numbers.

Gear tiers will have large increases in cost for small increases in effectiveness.

Skill points will have a linear impact rather than steps every 25 points.

Player will be able to raise skills by solo playing but it will be less efficient.

Detailed Notes,

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The first step is to address the power gap directly:

All stats will get the same diminishing returns treatment that health received. Stat debuffs will be changed to remove percentages rather than flat numbers. Gear tiers will have large increases in cost for small increases in effectiveness. We will also smooth out the way skill effectiveness improves. Rather than having only every 25 levels be meaningful, each individual point will add something. This will have a huge impact on the psychology of a play session and should provide positive feedback at a decreased interval.

In general, what we are going to do is reduce the base skill up speed approximately to what it was before most of the various speed increases that occurred in the original. We will choose a speed that is fast enough for a determined player to raise his skills alone, but far too boring to do all the time in solo. We will also reduce the base drop rate of most mobs and the loot distribution. Now it is going to be hard to make it out on your own financially.

Overall this means that newer players have an easier time catching up and can get tools to fight veterans faster. The debuffs being stronger against veterans mean that a skilled player that can consistently lands debuffs will level the playing field. The change in gear should help lower the "daily pvp gear bag" level and let newer players create a viable bank faster too.

Monster Spawn Scaling

Overview,

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"And now our engagement system comes into play! For each player engaged with a mob spawn, the mobs of this spawn will become stronger but also drop more loot. Some spawns will even have more monsters appearing to fight off the player threat."

Bullet Points,

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Reduce base drop rates for most mobs and the loot distribution.

Increase difficulty and loot significantly for each player engaged with the same spawn.

Difficulty will raise slightly faster than loot gains.

Increase skill up modifier for each player engaged with the same spawn, including heals and buff ! (depending on mob type, a hard cap for this increase will be set)

Bonus loot (and ONLY bonus one) generated by the engagement system will have a "grace period" of 20 seconds. Other players cannot loot it without becoming rogue.

Detailed Notes,

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And now our engagement system comes into play! For each player engaged with a mob spawn, the mobs of this spawn will become stronger but also drop more loot. Some spawns will even have more monsters appearing to fight off the player threat.

Difficulty should raise slightly faster than loot gains to add more challenge and encourage group coordination. We'll have different class of monsters reacting differently to the player assault. While Goblins would just swarm more and call in the help of more shamans, Hobgoblins would start using more advanced tactics as a cohesive unit and a Golem would become bigger and use more varied abilities.

In addition, each player will receive a general skill up bonus for each other player engaged with the same spawn. There will be diminishing returns and some low level monsters, like goblins, will have a maximum skill up modifier.

In conclusion, you need to hit mobs more, for more skill ups each time in order to receive more loot in the end. Even heals and buffs get improved faster thanks to the engaged status. Solo players can still progress, but the way to go is together.

The end goal here is to have players stop antagonizing each other and stick together organically when leveling up. Perhaps even create friendships over farming a spawn together or living in the same npc city. It would also help to create emergent gameplay and reduce ganking: Attacking 10 players at a spawn turns into a fight.

We also want players to have a greater challenge when doing PvE, and incidentally, have more fun. This should provide positive interaction between veteran players and newer players too. If loot increases as numbers increase, then veterans have incentives to bring in some lower level players to increase their own personal gains.

We will also use this feature to reduce negative interactions between players. The additional loot generated due to a player's engagement with a spawn will have a "grace period" of 20 seconds. During that time, only that one player can loot this stack of objects, then it will become public loot. This allows us to have the advantages of instanced loot without the inflation drawbacks it causes.

In the end, the average player will earn as much and will skill up faster than in the original while having a greater sense of belonging to a community.

Meditation and Questing

Overview,

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"We will remove the gold cost of meditation points and provide alternate ways of gaining them. We will also make every skill, ability and stat be part of the system. We will keep meditation as "offline only" initially. It will be easier to handle technically and serves the idea that the meditation system is aimed at newer players and those with less time to play."

Bullet Points,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

We will remove the gold cost of meditation point and provide alternative ways of gaining them.

Meditation will be kept "offline only".

All quests in the game will provide an amount of meditation points, including dungeon dailies.

More quests will be added to the racial NPC sub-factions.

Villages capture will get additional rewards with meditation points.

Commission points will be exchangeable for meditation points.

Through this exchange, we aim to let players grow their character through PvP only.

Detailed Notes

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

We will remove the gold cost of meditation points and provide alternate ways of gaining them. We will also make every skill, ability and stat be part of the system. We will keep meditation as "offline only" initially. It will be easier to handle technically and serves the idea that the meditation system is aimed at newer players and those with less time to play.

All quests in the game will provide an amount of meditation points, including dungeon dailies. We will also be completing the sub factions concept to have a form of "reputation" factor that unlock more quests and more repeatable content.

The idea here is that a new player has a lot of quests that can be done only once so they'll get more meditation point in average than a veteran that has completed them already. It is yet another catch up mechanic that at the same times encourage newer players to explore the world and its lore.

For veterans, there will be the dungeon dailies and we will expand the hourly quests to have leader boards and personal stats. This should be one more reason for people to be out there in the world and do stuff together.

Now that we have touched upon how to gain skills and stats, let's deep a bit more into what our player progression system will look like.

"Our title system is an expansion of the titles in the same spirit than the destroyer title. These will NOT be classes and will be completely optional. The idea is to let players focus on specific aspects of their playstyle at the expense of reduced effectiveness in other aspects. The overall goal is to allow newer players, or more casual players, to focus on a limited amount of skills and still be viable."

Bullet Points,

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These will NOT be classes and will be completely optional

Idea is to be able to pick and chose a variety of titles and reach a desired play style without being too much limited.

Titles once deselected will slowly lose levels at the same rate they were gained.

Titles will be obtained throughout the world as reward for new quests.

Five type of titles will be implemented:

Combat.

Utility.

Crafting.

Gathering.

Operators, to combine two usually incompatible titles.

Titles compete for the same pool of slots.

Detailed Notes,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Our title system is an expansion of the titles in the same spirit than the destroyer title. These will NOT be classes and will be completely optional. The idea is to let players focus on specific aspects of their playstyle at the expense of reduced effectiveness in other aspects. The overall goal is to allow newer players, or more casual players, to focus on a limited amount of skills and still be viable.

Full hybrid characters will have the advantages of versatility and will be preferable for players that have had a lot of time to spend improving their player skills. We're just trying to ease the pain of not having reached that point yet, or not wanting to. What we want is to allow players to create the character that fits what they enjoy playing or what they are good at.

In use, it will be very similar to a loadout system in traditional FPSes, but will be an opt-in feature. Player freedom was a great selling point of Darkfall, and this title system will add even more to it.

General details:

A character may use only a handful of titles at the same time. Once activated, a title cannot be changed for a week. The aim of this system is to give people means to put an emphasis on a specific play style they like, not to have them switch whenever they please.That luxury of adaptability is reserved for "vanilla" characters.

Titles unlock some boons on activation. For example a new spell when activating a "fire mage" title. It will also give the full drawbacks straight away. A title will take several months to reach its level 100 and will raise over time as long as the character account is subscribed. There will be a diminishing return as early points will be granted every few hours while later points will be granted every few days.

The progressive effect will generally improve subskills related to the selected playstyle. For our fire mage example, it will double the impact of the fire school subskills. Which means in the case of a mastery +20% rather than +10% damage. The drawbacks will generally be to just lockout subskills effects. For instance, our fire mage would lose access to melee masteries, doing 10% less damage with melee compared to a vanilla character. 20% less than a character specialized in a certain weapon.

When a title is deselected, it will slowly lose level at the same rate it gained them, so experimenting won't be punishing.

Some of the titles will also have several tiers of commitment, or will require other titles to be active, increasing gains by a bit but increasing drawbacks by a lot. Players will have the choice to completely discard an aspect of their characters for some additional perks on what they intend to use. It will still impact subskills only. However, we're considering adding titles at a later date that function like an opposing school lockdown. But we're still hesitant on that and want to balance how our normal titles behave first to introduce these in a stable meta game. Titles will be obtained throughout the world as a reward for new quests. These won't be "kill 500 monsters" type of quests but will be related to the title itself and its purpose.

Types of titles and title slots:

There will be five types of titles:

Combat: those will impact combat effectiveness by increasing one aspect and decreasing another. Some will come with unique active abilities as well.

Utility: those will range from improving quest rewards to granting swimming speed.

Crafting: those will improve trueforge skills for a specific type of items and will unlock unique recipes.

Gathering: those will improve gathering skills, alter what can be looted or even unlock access to new types of nodes.

Operators: those will be like math operators and will be placed between two other titles. They'll permit combination or additions of title effects that shouldn't occur.

All titles compete for the same pool of slots. Initially, we are thinking of 5 slots, with some titles taking up more than one slot and others taking less than one. The idea is to be able to pick and chose a variety of titles and reach a desired playstyle without being too much limited. A character could have for instance two combat titles, one utility title, one gathering title and one crafting title. This would result in a balanced playstyle touching all aspect of game play in narrow ways.

Another character could have a utility title focused on trade,two crafting titles and two gathering titles. This character would be focused on being a crafter. And finally, a character could equip only utility titles and remain a full hybrid combat focused character. This system should provide a lot of player choices and give a sense of "doing their own thing".

Examples of titles:

Please keep in mind this is a temporary list just to illustrate the concept. None of the numbers presented are final and neither are the titles guaranteed to end up being implemented at launch. There will be balance betas to decide on those points.

combination: can be placed between two titles that should cancel each other. For instance, swordsman and magic affinity.

hybrid: if placed between two specific titles will merge them into one. For instance, Swordsman and air magic would replace melee abilities with variants that take mana and stamina and have additional effects. (whirlwind being an actual whirlwind, for example)There will be more titles for each school and weapon types, and we are open for suggestions on titles you would like to see in the game.

Now that we've covered PvE and player progression, it's time to start talking about PvP and using those skills!

8. Daily PVP Activities

Land Trade Routes

Overview,

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"We've always believed it was a shame that the trade route system was never completed. While ideally we would want organic trade routes to exist, having some static systems in place to give the same experience to players without the capital to do actual trade is a great idea."

Bullet Points,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Increase the amount of drop points that exists in the game.

Add most of them to NPC cities but keep some wild trade posts.

Remove the map timers and increase the frequency at which trade route missions can be activated by individual players.

Let player decide when to start a trade route.

Only a handful of routes active at the same time, changing every day.

We may add increased predictability later on to help bandits.

Detailed Notes,

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We will be taking the same concept as it was implemented and increase the amount of drop point that exist in the game. Most of these new trade posts will be in NPC cities. We will keep some wild trade posts, to offer some content to red players and add a random factor to how dangerous a drop off can be, but the general idea is to have safe pickup and drop off points.

We will also remove the map timers and increase the frequency at which trade route missions can be activated by individual players. Every day, a handful of routes will be randomly selected and players will be able to start them whenever they want.

The idea here is that we want to change a bit the gameplay. It used to be a last man standing then a long ride towards another last man standing. There was meaningful gameplay only at the two ends of the road, and not much in the middle.

By letting players decide when to start a trade route and having only a handful of routes for the day, it allows highway men to set up ambushes on the shortest path from pick up to drop off and hopefully provide meaningful content throughout the entire trip.

If the system doesn't work out as we hope, and that it turns out to be hard to predict the shortest path for highwaymen, we'll consider having some mid route checkpoints as well. This will give more predictable spots where trade route runners will pass through but the whole system will be more guided.

As long as this system will be an eventful ride and a fun activity to run or hunt for, then it will be doing its part for the game as a whole.

Sea Trade Routes

Overview,

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"We also believe that expanding the system to ships and a network of harbors would be an amazing way of providing regular naval content. Both of those systems are added as a reason to remain blue and as a reason to be red at the same time. You will have more choices of locations as a positive aligned player, but being a bandit will prove profitable thanks to all those juicy targets on the roads and seas."

Bullet Points,

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Inspired by Land trade routes.

We will add special trade harbors in the world.

In those harbors, there will be several docking spots, ships entering those spots will trigger the quest for trading.

Loading and Unloading the cargo will be manually done by players.

Pirate harbors will be added to make pirates worth stealing the cargo.

Alongside our naval combat changes, this feature is designed with play and counter play in mind.

Detailed Notes,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Sea trade routes:

Daily content for ships is quite lacking. There are some PvE spawns, fishing and the occasional coastal siege, but there isn't anything that really motivates to go out there on a ship and travel with an objective in mind.

In order to remedy this, we've drawn up a concept for sea trade routes, looking at the already implemented land trade routes for inspiration. We will be adding special trade harbors in the world. Those harbors will be protected by racial guard towers and a captain that want to enter them will have to be of positive alignment.

In those harbors, there will be several docking spots and as the ship enters the zone, it will trigger the quest pop up as if the captain talked to an NPC. If the boat has a free strongbox slot, a trade route box will be equipped in it. The captain will be told the destination and its current cargo weight.

The loading and unloading of cargo is manual and crew members have to go from the ship to the warehouse to purchase a trade route bag and back to the ship overburdened. One strongbox slot can be filled by up to 50 trade route bag, and a trade route is validated only if a ship has at least 10 bags.

Once the ship leaves the harbor, it can be taken to its normal destination, or to a pirate harbor that is further away. This means that if the boat is captured by a red captain, it can still deliver its cargo someplace and provide a substantial reward. Note that if a ship is sunk, all its trade route bags are destroyed, so pirates will really have to board and capture the ship.

The manual loading and unloading of the cargo, in conjunction with the disabled state we'll add to ships, will give the defeated crew a chance at reclaiming their ship by coming back. Either to where it was disabled or by going to the pirate harbor where the bags could be traded in.

Ideally, this will mean that player will be able to sail their ship all day long and get a good mixture of action and rewards. And as a whole, both trade route systems should get players traveling the world and its roads. But what about those that don't want to travel to unknown destinations or don't have the capital yet to invest in trade route bags?

Wild Nodes

Overview,

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"Wild nodes are advanced nodes similar to clan nodes that we will place throughout the world. The area around wild nodes will be lawless, which means that there will be no alignment penalty to fight around them. If two characters are engaged against each other and leave a lawless area, there won't be any alignment penalties either. Running won't save you."

Bullet Points,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Wild nodes will be similar to clan nodes and will be placed throughout the world.

Wild nodes area will be lawless, meaning there will be no alignment penalty.

Wild nodes will have increased rare drops.

Wild nodes will require having the corresponding gathering title.

Normal nodes in an area around a wild node will have increased chance of interesting loot.

Detailed Notes,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Our goal with these nodes is to create hotspots for players that miss the old "if it moves, kill it" mentality of the original Darkfall. We have designed a lot of systems to prevent players from killing each other blindly, and having opt-in systems in the game that allow for complete free for all death matches will add variety.

Those wild nodes will have increased rare ore drops, including racial gear components, and will require characters to have the corresponding gathering title in order to harvest them. Normal nodes in an area around them will also have increased chances of interesting loot and can be harvested by all characters.

The idea here is to have groups come in, escorting harvester characters and harvest on their own while covering the area. We want players to make a choice between conserving stamina, keeping an eye out or maximizing gains. It is going to be one of our earliest attempt at using the world building tools and our goal is to add them in locations designed like battle arenas.

For example, a mine being an actual mine with multiple entrances and tunnels where fighting will be in very close quarters. Or a quarry that is in the middle of urban ruins, harvesting antique marble to build up cities, and having fights be house to house with some vertical elements.

We will also add wild fishing nodes. Those will be small sea areas where a ship equipped with fishing nets will have increased rare loot chances. The longer a ship stays in an area, the more frequent loot becomes. There will be a maximum frequency and that maximum will be lowered by how contested the zone is. A ship will want to be alone in the zone.

The aim being to have daily reasons to get a crew together and try to learn how to do ship combat. There too we want to create interesting areas. Perhaps between a bunch of icebergs where captains duke back and forth out of cover while their cannoneers try to get a shot on enemy ships. Or in a very agitated see where strong currents shakes the ships around and deviate them from their course. Since staying in the area grants a passive reward, we're expecting that escapes would be possible as winners will just drive away the competition and try to stay in the area as long as possible. It should be the safest way to experience naval combat and get some loot for those that know when to quit.

In the end, this system is an activity that player will be able to enjoy daily and that is extremely player driven. But those locations will be neutral and will offer occasional rewards. What about players looking for a more personal reason to PvP?

Village Capture Mechanism

Overview,

Quote

"Our villages changes are our first foray into player driven territory control. It will not only be a great tool to create small to medium scale PvP, it will also introduce great systems for social hubs, crafting and creating a "home" within Agon. As you've probably understood, we place a lot of value in positive interactions between players, and villages are amazing tools for that."

Bullet Points,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Villages will scale up according to how many people get engaged with the capture.

Each clan damages a separate hp pool.

When control point is destroyed, there will be an instant reward to ALL players of the wining clan engaged against the village point.

The area of a Village will become lawless 15 min before being vulnerable.

The area of a Village will stay lawless until 15 min after capture.

The goal is to have some kind of "King of the hill" scenario when capturing Village, promoting staying power over last hit glory.

Past the instant reward for individual clan members, there will be ongoing gains:

Hourly, the clan receives gold and a random chance of loot.

Hourly, players that were engaged against the point when it felt receive meditation points.

Hourly, amount of meditation point and and gold gained will increase by 1%.

If the same clan recapture the village, the percentage is kept.

Detailed Notes,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Just like our spawns, we want villages to scale up according to how many people get involved with the capture. The idea is to get people to go after them with as many people as possible so as to get medium scale action daily.

Here are the specifics:

Each player that hits a control point or heals/buff a player "engaged":

Adds 15% of base life to the control point

Gains the engaged state with that control points

Adds 50% of control point's base loot to the winnings

Control points life pools are unique for each clan but are still increased by exterior attackers.

When the control point is destroyed there is an instant reward for all players engaged against the village point. They receive it in their backpack.

The area around a village becomes lawless 15mins before getting vulnerable

The area stays lawless for 15mins after capture

The result should be some kind of king of the hill scenario, promoting staying power rather than last hit glory. Also, villages are now worth fighting for, and the more people fight for them, the more it is worth coming back after a death. Especially to kill the victors and gain their instant reward.

Past the instant reward for individual clan members, there will be ongoing gains:

Hourly, the clan receives gold and a random chance of loot in a named bag in the clan vault.

Hourly, players that were engaged against the point when it fell receive meditation points every hour, the amount of MP and the bounty gained is increased by 1% if the same clan recaptures the village, the percentage is kept.

This should discourage village hoping, making one round and getting many villages to be lost after one control not that effective. There is more to gain by defending, more to lose when failing and it gives an incentive to capture villages of clan that have been owning them for a while to make them lose their advantage.

We hope that people will choose only one or two villages near each other to maintain control over. And if they manage to do more, then they will definitely deserve the rewards.

9. Player Housing

Specific Changes

Overview,

Quote

"First and foremost, we will finally add a way to trade a house properly. Then we're changing how the individual slots behave. Their current type of house will now be their maximum possible upgrade and all housing slot start as a cottage that can then be upgraded."

Bullet Points,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Charged buff and debuff effects will be triggered in specific area or situation.

Early idea for these buffs:

Morale : positive skill up modifier.

Rested : Increase health / stamina / mana regeneration.

Comfort : Slightly increase max health / stamina / mana.

Early idea of areas that can trigger these buffs :

Taverns / keeps.

Private homes.

Sitting down / resting areas.

We will add a way to trade house properly.

All housing slots begin with the cottage.

House slots start as cottage and can be upgraded up to their current level.

An upgrade costs a deed and some resources to bring to the house slot.

An upgrade has a timer so that players can interrupt/contest an upgrade.

Deeds will be available from more sources :

Bought from regional councilors as a gold and materials sink.

Chaos chest

Villas will have several upgrades available:

Large villas then Keeps: for more binds.

Taverns then Inns: for charged buff and rental of bind slots to strangers.

Workshop and master workshops: for better crafting and selling of wares.

Everything item in a player house can be craft except for vendors.

Taxes will depend on house size and amount of available binds.

A player can only be bound if he goes physically to the other players' house.

Dead players can choose to respawn at a bindstone or at their house.

The goal is to make village housing the most customizable and advantageous form of housing.

Detailed Notes,

Quote

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

First and foremost, we will finally add a way to trade a house properly. Then we're changing how the individual slots behave. Their current type of house will now be their maximum possible upgrade and all housing slot start as a cottage that can then be upgraded.

Players will need a cottage deed just to reserve the location, but deeds will now be available from more than one source:

Bought from regional councilors as a gold and materials sink.

Through chaos chest and reward table, to serve as a cool event and a big event for newer or poorer players.

As the house will start as a cottage, it will need to be upgraded up to its maximum level. Deeds act as blueprint for these upgrades and need to be applied to the location 22h before being able to start the building process. A house in that phase shows a timer similar to how it shows when the house is about to go free. Once the building phase starts, the owners have a window of 2 hours to bring all the required materials.

If the upgrade progress is not finished in that time, the deed is consumed and all materials already used will be dropped around the house and free for all. Upgrades will cost enough to need a caravan or be harvested on location and upgrading will take, depending on the tier of the housing project, 5 to 25 minutes of uninterrupted interaction.

The idea here is that while houses are safe as long as players pay their taxes, we wanted to add more moments in the life of a house where it is a source of conflict. The upgrading process is also a great way to have a sense of achievements for players and an interesting material sink. We will adapt large villa slots to be a branching progression.

Players will have a choice between upgrading to:

A large villa, with more household bind spots.

A tavern, with social activities and charged buffs but less household bind spots.

A Workshop, which will have buffs for crafting on craft stations and advanced vendors features.

Keep level housing slots will have the ability to be expanded up to:

A keep, with even more household bind spots.

An Inn, an upgraded Tavern with some temporary bind slots that are "rented" by anyone willing.

An advanced workshop, which will be able to have a foundry and will have even more buffs to crafting alongside more craft station slots

Morale and Other charged Effects

Detailed notes,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Charged buffs/debuffs are effects triggered in certain areas and that get more potent and lasting the more they are refreshed. The effects are mostly relevant to the environment they are acquired in and will have a maximum potency and duration. Here is a first draft of these buffs and eventual effects:

Morale: positive skill up modifier.

Rested: Increase health/stamina/mana regeneration.

Comfort: slightly increase max health/stamina/mana.

And they would be gained from zones such as:

Taverns/keeps.

Private homes.

Sitting down/resting areas.

They wouldn't be gained afk but by performing "buff other" activities such as:

Dancing.

Playing card/board games.

Sitting in the same zone.

Cheering together.

Player doing "exotic dances".

We're also considering adding charged debuffs, but nothing fleshed out just yet. Early ideas would be similar to being scared at night in a graveyard, or hot near lave and even tired by being out of a "rested" effect for too long. These would come at a later point.

These features should encourage socialization and give a use for buildings, especially for player housing and the Rested effect, or the taverns/keeps for the Morale. We're considering adding a slower charging version of all three effects when logging off in a private home. Which by extension would give more value to the blue status and NPC cities apartments.

Quality of Life Changes

Detailed Notes,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Along those changes on how houses are obtained and upgraded, we will be adding some quality of life improvements to the system:

Everything from a player house will be craftable except for vendors.

Vendors will be rented from NPC cities.

We'll keep random loots in too as rewards and reasons to go explore the world.

Taxes depend on house size and the amount of characters bound.

A player can own several houses but:

He can be bound to only one house.

Taxes increase by 1.X, X being the amount of house owned.

A player can be bound to another player's house but:

He needs to be in that person's allowed list.

He needs to physically go there.

There needs to be an empty bind spot in the house.

A dead player can chose to respawn at his bind-house or his bindstone.

Houses will have three list of players. Household, Visitors and blacklist.

Household functionalities:

Can bind there.

Can open/close door.

Can pay taxes.

Can use crafting stations.

Access his own section of the vendor.

Access his own section of the safe.

Access a household common section of the safe.

Visitor functionalities:

Can open/close door.

Can pay taxes.

Can use crafting stations

Blacklisted functionalities:

Those players cannot even purchase items on vendors.

They won't be able to use temporary bind spots in Inns.

Household/visitors may pay house taxes, but no one else can.

Base taxes in player villages are the highest (village>player city>npc city)

We will also change the behavior when a house goes live for recapture:

No need for a deed anymore.

The capture makes loud noises of building (hammer, saw).

The capture lasts: level of house x 3mins (3 to 15mins)

The capture razes the house to the ground (mat and gold sink)

The content of the safe, vendor and some rare loots are dropped

A capture is interrupted if the capturer is damaged in melee

The idea here is to make village housing more customizable and advantageous and as such they should cost the most as a base price. They are great tools to create safe havens and for small groups to create a home for themselves. Having close access to the capture point is also a big advantage.

We hope to see players use the taverns and the workshops to create great social hubs in villages while keeps would serve as guild housing. Npc cities apartments will have almost no customization but are the cheapest. It's to give low level players access to a home and the related charged buff, give cities a life if their own and yet still give incentive to move out and go in more risky places.

Player holding housing will have protection advantages, but less customization. There is a minimum price for renting in a player holding, and owners may increase it. It is also vulnerable to political changes and require an heavier time investment. But it comes with the buffs and advantages from holdings. These features serves as a prelude to clan warfare and the next step is for a clan to acquire their own holdings.

"The basic feature of a watchtower is to represent territory around holdings and extend their "system" detection range and the area where clan buffs are in effect. If the clan has set their holdings to behave like racial territory, the watchtowers areas also become racial territory and will provide the corresponding buffs. Players will be able to name those watchtowers and get warnings such as: "North West watchtower spotted a band of 5 enemies of the clan R0xx0rz."."

Bullet Points,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Watchtower goal is to give clans a tool to tax areas of the map (loot, gold, ...), extend their territory and gain control over it.

Watchtowers will be structures that players can craft or buy from NPCs and place in the world.

Three type of Watchtower will be available (Wooden, Stone and Fort) with different area of influence, price and resistance.

First Watchtower can be placed anywhere.

Others will have to overlap their area of influence but cannot have another tower in their area of influence.

If a harbor is in a watchtower's influence, the clan can build a watchtower next to a single other harbor in the world. Water travel distance will increase the cost.

Additional watchtowers will cost increasing gold to place.

Area of influence will extend area where clan buff is applied.

Area of influence will extend the "system" detection range.

Area of influence will extend racial territory if clan is bound to racial warfare.

Watchtowers can be renamed by clan owner.

Watchtowers can be upgraded to a specific role (Tax collector, land manager, local bank, supplier, walls and gate, banners)

When loot is collected by a Watchtower, it will appear grayed in the gravestone or in the harvesting log.

Tax collector will have a weight limit, once reached the collector will stop taxing but clan buffs will be doubled.

Player claned or unclaned will be able to siege Watchtower

Siege cost against Watchtowers will have a flat cost + a variable one depending on weight collected in tax collectors.

Watchtowers siege costs are increased drastically if an overlapping watchtower is currently being sieged.

An immunity window of 6 hours can be set by the owners.

Once a watchtower is destroyed, anyone can loot whatever the tax collector or local bank contains.

Once a watchtower is destroyed, every upgrade except walls, gates and decoration will be remove from Agon instantly.

Walls, gate and decoration will remain for 3 hours and a ruin will be spawned in place of the old watchtower.

A clan that has lost a Watchtower will be unable to place a new Watchtower over the ruin for 15 minutes. Others will be able.

All friendly Watchtower overlapping with the one that just get destroyed will have an invulnerability period of 30 minutes.

If a Watchtower is defended, the siege cost (wager) is added to the tax collector's loot and it becomes invulnerable for 15 minutes.

Detailed Notes,

Quote

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The goal of watchtowers is to give clans a tool to tax areas of the map and represent their territory. Watchtowers will be structures that players can craft or buy from NPCs and place in the world. They will come in several sizes with increasing prices:

Wooden Watchtower: Just a simple tower to climb up and look around. Its base will be its foundation.

Stone Watchtower: A stone tower with more protected windows and a wooden door. Its base will be within.

Fort: A more complex structure with doors and some protected positions equivalent to the size of a player village keep. Its base will be within.

The size of a watchtower structure determines the area of influence it casts but also its endurance in case of an attack. There will be placement fees and each consecutive watchtower will increase the fee by about 20% multiplicatively. This means for example : 10 000g, 12 000g, 14 400g, 17 280g and so on.

The first watchtower can be placed anywhere, like inside an allied clan holding or in a player village. Additional watchtowers can only be placed if their area would overlap with the area of an existing Clan watchtower. If a watchtower overlaps with an harbor, a watchtower can be placed next to a single other free harbor in the world. A price increase will occur depending on the water travel distance between the two harbors.

There will be some other placement rules like not be too close to NPC cities or not overlap with non allied watchtowers. The idea here is that in order to cover a large territory, a clan will be facing increasing costs. It will be harder for a huge empire to maintain its territory, and using a feudal system with each holdings placed under different clan would ease up the logistics.

Watchtower Features

Detailed Notes,

Quote

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The basic feature of a watchtower is to represent territory around holdings and extend their "system" detection range and the area where clan buffs are in effect. If the clan has set their holdings to behave like racial territory, the watchtowers areas also become racial territory and will provide the corresponding buffs. Players will be able to name those watchtowers and get warnings such as: "North West watchtower spotted a band of 5 enemies of the clan R0xx0rz.".

Watchtowers can have other structures placed in its area and attached to it, with each providing either decoration, protection or specific abilities. The type of watchtower will also determine the potency of upgrades attached to it, larger being better. An early list of what upgrades will be:

Tax collector: 5-15% of any loot dropped in the watchtower's area will end up in its vault.

Land manager: 5-15% more loot dropped by mobs/nodes in the watchtower's area.

Local Bank: The watchtower will be able to serve as a close by bank.

Supplier: A merchant that sells basic foods, reagents and ammunition.

Walls and gates: To create an enclosed area.

Banners and other decorative elements.

These upgrades should allow players to create base of operations close to nodes or monster spawns withing their territory. In essence, improve the value of their lands. For stackable things such as reagents, arrows, gold or skinning / harvesting results, the tax collector will take a percentage of it but not the whole stack. For objects like weapons/ armors / etc, it will have a percentage of chance to keep the object.

When an item is taken away by the tax collector, it is shown in grayed out in the gravestone or is indicated in the harvesting log. We want players to understand that they are being taxed and what exactly was taken away from them.

The land manager buff will have a reverse effect for stackable items, improving the drop amount. For objects, it will increase the drop rates (ex: from 10% to 11.5%) The buff will apply first, then the tax will apply separately: 100g -> 115g -> 97g.Each tax collector will be in one or more of these modes:

Tax all (default).

Do not tax Clan members.

Do not tax Clan friends (list of individual players in clan management).

Do not tax Clan Alliance members.

Do not tax blue Race members.

Do not tax blue Racial Alliance members.

Do not tax Patriotic Racial Alliance members.

Do not tax anyone.

There is a limit to the weight possible on a tax collector. Once reached, the collector will stop taxing but double the buffs of Land managers. This double effect is also applied when "no tax" mode is activated. This should give a variety of ways for clans to manage their territory, attract friendly players and earn a living. This adds onto our "landlord" approach to holdings management.

Watchtower Siege Rules

Detailed notes,

Quote

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Players, clanned or unclanned, will be able to siege a watchtower for a wager equivalent to 2500g + 5g per kg in the Collector. The current weight in the vault is always visible when hovering on the tax collector. The idea is that players may not know what is in the collectors vault and make a bet regarding its content, or they just saw what was dropped and want to get it back. We also need to have a price in place to avoid "trolling" sieges with no intention to fight. If the attackers are at war with the owners, then their wager will be divided by two.

If a watchtower is overlapping a currently sieged watchtower's influence area, then it's siege cost is drastically increased. Aside from that there are no limitation to how many watchtowers can be sieged at the same time.

This is to once again make large empire harder to defend and encourage players to maintain wars towards each other rather than attack without warnings. We will be adding an optional immunity window of 6h where watchtowers cannot be sieged. This will either involve a cost in gold or simply shutdown buffs/taxation. This will be up to the owners.Once a tax Collector is sieged:

The clan gets a warning, a map marker and a count down.

The Collector is frozen and can no longer be emptied. It also stops collecting taxes.

15 minutes later, the structures go vulnerable.

It is only 15 minutes to force clans to choose wisely were to place their watchtowers. They'll need to react and regroup fast.Once the time is up:

The watchtower and its upgrades goes vulnerable for 30 minutes.

Everyone except owners, their friends and allies go rogue in the watchtower's area.

End of the battle is decided by timeout or explosion of the watchtower's base.

If the watchtower's base is destroyed, any one can loot whatever the tax collector's vault and the local bank contained. Just like a strongbox. Every upgrade attached to that watchtower except walls will be deleted from the world instantly. Walls, gates and decoration will remain with a timer of 3h until deletion and a watchtower ruin will be spawned in place of the old watchtower. If a watchtower is built in the place of the previous one before the 3 hours timer runs down, remaining upgrades will automatically be attached to it.

The clan that has lost the watchtower will not be able to place another watchtower on this ruin for 15 minutes. Anyone else will be able to as soon as they want to.

This gives them a chance to keep fighting and regain their territory and a window of time where attackers have a chance to take over territory despite enemy overlapping rules. All friendly watchtowers with an overlapping area with the destroyed watchtower will receive a siege invulnerability for 30 mins. This is to permit a front line to progress in leaps but not constantly.

There will be any number of concurrent sieges, but it stops for a time to give defenders and attackers a chance to regroup. If the watchtower is defended, the wager is added to the tax collector's loot and it becomes invulnerable for 15 minutes. This is to avoid chain sieging while keeping fights frequent.

The Collector is unfrozen and resume collecting resources and can be emptied. We believe that this system will add a great way to improve a clan's territory while providing daily PvP activities in the form of border skirmishes. In an indirect way, it makes actual holdings more secure while guaranteeing that meaningful fights occur. A war should be a campaign rather than a one time effort that comes out of nowhere.

Waging a Campaign

Overview,

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"In our opinion, the war and sieges in Darkfall were the grandest thing to ever exist in gaming. When everything came together it was a sight to behold, but as all things, there was room for improvement. Mainly that sieges in a well established world could be rare and be immediately punishing. We cannot prevent play to crush mentality, as this is the name of the game, but we can certainly change the way wars are waged in order to become actual campaigns.

With our villages capture changes, our raiding mechanic and our watchtowers mechanic, we've added plenty of reasons to fight daily and wage wars. There are attrition mechanics and reward opportunities included in each of these features. We now need to add the cherry on top by linking them to sieges as an apotheosis to weeks of escalation."

Bullet Points,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

No more global announcements.

Free selectable 6 hours window of invulnerability

Removing Invulnerability Shards from the game.

Watchtower siege wager is half the price when being sieged by a clan at war.

Remove multiple sieges protections.

More than one holding of a clan will be siegeable.

Detailed notes,

Quote

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

First and foremost, there will be no more global announcements. Wars in New Dawn are about geographical contexts and only those involved or with the proper information networks should be aware of when a siege or a war is declared.We will also remove invulnerability shards from the game but have a free selectable 6h window of invulnerability against raiding and sieging.

That time period will be shared with an optional paid invulnerability window for watchtowers, either through gold or by disabling all bonus advantages of watchtowers. The cost that were invulnerability shards is now represented by the investment required to have and maintain several layers of watchtowers around holdings.If a watchtower is within a holding, and that watchtower's area is overlapping the area of at least one other allied watchtower, then that holding cannot be sieged.

This means that unless waging a daily war to surround a holding, a siege is impossible. As we want holdings to have more value and encourage players to make them their home, we want attackers to prove their superiority more than once in order to give a wider margin of errors to defenders. Attacking clans will need to earn their victories, but as a counter point, defenders will need to show they deserve to keep their holdings.

This is why we're removing invulnerability shards from the game. Land owners will have to be smart and fight daily to defend their territory. If they fail and get surrounded, then they deserve defeat. As watchtowers cost half the price when being sieged by a clan at war, it will encourage to maintain the war status for however long the campaign lasts. No longer will there be surprise war declarations followed by an immediate siege.

We will also remove multiple sieges protection. More than one holding of a clan will be siegeable at the same time since they are now harder to attain. Once a holding has been isolated, it will be time to start the siege.

Siege Changes

Bullet Points,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Holdings can be sieged only when no friendly watchtowers are overlapping with their area.

The first siege stone will take 15 minutes to activate once placed.

A warning will be sent to the holding owners.

Siege stones have a non refundable price.

Once the first siege stone is activated, the siege is declared for 22 hours later.

During those 22 hours, siege camps can be built around the siege stones.

Once the 22 hours are up, the siege will start and will last 4 hours.

During those 4 hours of siege, the bindstone and all siege camps will become vulnerable.

Siege timing out result as a draw, and all side with a standing siege camp will get enough time to regroup to prepare for the next assault.

Detailed Notes,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Now let's get into the details of sieges. The first siege stone will takes 15 minutes to activate once placed and a warning will be sent to the holding owners. This gives a chance to prevent siege drop and destroys the stone. In theory, a defender could manage to delay a siege activation long enough that it becomes no longer a good timing for the attackers and they have to fall back. Siege stones also have a non refundable price so each stone destroyed is a morale victory as well as an attrition one. Once the first siege stone is activated, the siege is declared for 22 hours later. During those 22 hours, several things can happen:

No new watchtowers overlapping the holding can be placed by the attacking clan.

No raid stones can be used against that holding.

2 additional siege stones can be placed by the attackers with the same 15 minutes activation timer.

Additional clans can place up to 3 siege stones under the same conditions.

Clans that add a stone and are allies with a clan that previously placed a stone join their "faction".

Siege stones will use the same technology than watchtowers and allow to create siege camps with these upgrades:

Clan vault: local storage to store supplies for the siege.

Tents: Increase siege stone bind slots capacity by 2 extra slots.

Siege supplier: NPC that sells reagents, ammunition and basic foods.

Palisades, gates and other defensive structures.

Once the 22 hours is up, the siege will start and will last 4 hours:

Every structure in the holding and in the siege camps become vulnerable.

The clan stone will have its base health multiplied by the amount of siege stones.

The clan stone has individual health bars for each faction, just like village control points do for clans.

During the 4 hours of the actual siege, there are three possible outcomes:

All siege stones are destroyed: defenders win and gain all wagers.

A faction finishes its individual clan stone health bar: That faction conquers the holding and may loot the local clan vault.

The 4 hours run out: destroyed siege stones remain destroyed but surviving siege camps can be repaired and upgraded again.

Siege restarts 20 hours later.

In conclusion, this system should allow alliances to work together when attacking a holding. Attackers get to make the choice to have fall back siege camps at the cost of increasing the capture difficulty. Siege camps allow attackers to invest a lot into an attack and give additional rewards for the defenders if they are victorious. If more than one faction attacks, it will transform the siege into a king of the hill scenario where siege camps can be attacked from multiple avenues.

The siege timing out won't mean victory but a draw, and all sides will get time to regroup for the next assault. All in all, we believe that this system will make sieges something literally epic and memorable. After talking so much about war and fighting, let's talk a bit about how we end up to this point.

Clan Diplomacy Changes

Bullet Points,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Make war declarations meaningful and the "at war" status be a conscious choice rather than a fire and forget status.

Add utilities to clan friends list like being able to bind to holdings, receiving clan buffs and appear as allies (green).

Remove global announcement for diplomatic changes.

Have an attrition cost when being "at war".

Doing a war declaration will cost gold depending on how many members there are in the clan.

Maintaining an "at war" status will cost gold depending on how many members there are in the clan (this is to reflect some kind of campaign cost).

Detailed Notes,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

In this article we explain some changes and improvements we wish to do on clan diplomacy. This should work well alongside our changes to holdings aimed at helping allies to cohabit easier. We're also trying to make war declarations meaningful and the "at war" status be a conscious choice rather than a fire and forget status. First we'll add utility to the clan friends list. This will be a list of individual players with the following rights:

Can bind to holdings

Receive clan buffs (but not alliance buffs)

Appear as allies (green)

Of course, they will lose all advantages and will become enemies as long as they are in an enemy clanWe'll also add finer controls to zap tower:

Friends and friendly clans are not attacked.

Wary clans are attacked.

Both these diplomatic status will also be reflected with their own color in the UI and when hovering over a character of such a clan. As we plan on doing for sieges, we will remove global announcement for diplomatic changes. Only involved clans and their allies will receive diplomacy changes updates. Finally we will modify the "at war" state to have much more of an impact. The idea is to have an attrition cost set on wars to offset a bit all the gains and buffs we've added through our other systems. Please note that the numbers given here are just an example and we may alter them later. They will be also susceptible to be changed by our automatic inflation control feature. Which means those values will depend on how much gold exists in the game and will serve as gold sinks.When a war is declared:

Enemies become orange (free to kill).

Their allies yellow (free to kill only if engaged in the fight).

When initiating a war declaration, there is an upfront cost of 500g per members in each clan involved and their allies.

If one of your allies is already at war with that clan, then you only pay 500g per members of your own clan.

For each day of war, you pay 100g for each member in the enemy alliance.

This can be seen as an abstraction of paying rulers for the right of killing enemies in town. The at war status will enable to reduce by two the cost of sieging watchtowers which should end up paying for itself if you win often enough. This should reduce the amount of ongoing wars and ensure they occur only when necessary or for a conquest purpose. As a side bonus, it should cripple one man clans declaring wars on large clans just to kill their crafters. Racial NPC cities just became a bit safer and friendlier for new players. But the game now needs ways to ease them into PvP. Stay tuned for Racial Wars descriptions as an intermediary step until clan based combat.

"As we said in our secondary flaws page, we consider holdings to not have enough uses and want them to be much more central to New Dawn's daily activities. In order to attain this, we will tweak and improve many of the aspects of holdings ranging from customization to added social features."

General Changes

Bullet Points,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Player race will determines the design of buildings.

Create new location for clan resource nodes and move them outside of the walls.

Remove Portal chambers

The slots of portals and clan nodes inside the city will be replaced by slots for new building: arenas, taverns, market places, etc.

Customization

Detailed Notes,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

First, we'll be talking about cosmetic customization. We want the race of the builder to determines the design of buildings added to the holding. With our tradeable recipe system, a builder that have access to other styles of buildings will be able to chose the racial design at build time, and can refactor to another style for 10% of the building's cost. We will eventually add more architecture styles later in the life of the game, once we have the resources for it. We hope to see great and unique combination coming from players.

We will be removing portal entrances and exits from the game. This goes along with local banking as a way to promote geographically bound powers and encourage organic trade routes. Also, we will create new locations for clan resource nodes and we will be moving them outside of the walls. A mine should look like a mine and a quarry should be at the side of a mountain, a farm in a field and a grove should be in a forest.In exchange, we will replace those building slots with a choice of utility buildings:

Arena: No durability losses and reagent/ammo losses. Perfect for duels and training new recruits.

Market place: people can rent vendors and pay a percentage of sales to the city.

Gnome trade-post: access to a banker and global gold accounts.

Tavern: Slowly charge a "morale buff" and mini games to socialize.

Hospital: Reduces/avoids death penalty, but has a maintenance cost.

Crafting tables not part of the original holding design (mostly useful for hamlets).

Foundry: In order to make warhulks more common.

Player village keep: more renting space. We'll explain below.

The idea here is to have holdings owners be able to decide what is the most valuable for their players as there will always be something that they won't have room for.

Making Holdings a Social Hub

Overview,

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"We believe that holdings should become social hubs not only for clan and alliance members but for neutral players too. Player interaction and political decision should have more factors and we think a great idea to improve that is to have holdings become villages under a clan control. The owning clan would be landlords and noblemen of sorts and will have the choice to have civilian citizens that may help for defense or specifically move in for the promise of protection."

Bullet Points,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Holdings houses become player housing houses under a clan control.

Houses will be upgradeable up to large villa.

Rent goes to the owning clan and its minimum price will be superior to the ones in NPC cities.

Owning clan can set a higher rent price if they wish.

Rents in villages and NPC cities will vary according to gold inflation, this one will be player driven.

Add tools for owners to encourage players to live in their holdings (like player made quests and charged buffs)

Clan buffs are shared with allied clans.

Positively aligned clans will be able to have their holdings act as a racial territory.

We will add a way to trade holdings properly.

Detailed Notes,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

We believe that holdings should become social hubs not only for clan and alliance members but for neutral players too. Player interaction and political decision should have more factors and we think a great idea to improve that is to have holdings become villages under a clan control.

The owning clan would be landlords and noblemen of sorts and will have the choice to have civilian citizens that may help for defense or specifically move in for the promise of protection. To that end, houses will be replaced by player village houses upgradeable up to large villa. Rather than be taken out of the system, the rent goes to the owning clan and its minimum price will be superior to the ones of npc cities.

The owning clan can then set a higher rent if they so wish, depending on what kind of service they offer or how desirable their location is. Rents in villages and NPC cities are gold sinks and will vary according to gold inflation, player driven rents would have the advantage to be more stable. This also adds an incentive to own holdings and be the best landlord possible. In order to foster an active community, we'll add tools for owners to encourage players to stay in their holdings.One of those is player created quests. So far, here are the quest types that are planned:

Be engaged in x number of hostile killed in region.

Gank player XYZ. (bounties)

Bring x number of y.

Be engaged in a village/watchtower victory. (for clan members)

We believe those should be enough to cover most cases and will allow active clan leadership to keep their community active and reward the collaboration of their members.

Giving More Value to Holdings

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Add a maintenance cost to holdings based on how many players are bound.

If maintenance cost not paid, random clan/alliance members will be unbound proportionately to the amount not paid.

We will add unique resources that improve the clan buffs and how they are shared with allies.

Each holding will provide one type of resource in abundance.

Resources can be traded.

The more different kind of resources are in a holding's reserves, the stronger are the buffs.

Crates now have a purpose of reducing special resource consumption at the risk of being raided.

Crafting in a player holding is more effective and efficient.

Holdings walls now have a scaling protection.

Detailed Notes,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Along becoming more feature complete social hubs, we want holdings to have an increased value to be even more of a reason to fight over. This means making them the optimal strategic choice to pursue in order to achieve long term victory.

The first step, is weirdly enough to add a maintenance cost. The reasoning is that we'll add enough incentives for individual players to be in a holding that we need a way to counter it at the global economical level. Each faucet needs an equal sink.Our early idea is to make maintenance cost 100g per day per bound player. Which would end up being 10k a day for 100 players.

This would of course not apply to the free racial alliance binds. The consequences would be that random clan/alliance members will be unbound proportionally to the amount not paid. This is an easy amount to gather per day but still is a gold sink and will prevent unorganized clans to maintain holdings too easily. Being a good landlord is once again put forward and being a holding manager will be an active and dedicated role. It will also allow for attrition war to have a purpose. If an enemy can raid enough to prevent a clan from farming what they need, they will end up losing the practicality of their holdings.

In exchange, we'll add the following buffs:

Rents revenue will be a great way of supporting clan and alliance members.

The new utility buildings will add more uses and activities for holdings.

The questing system will be a great way to organize a clan.

Being racial territory will provide extra buffs for members and more defenders.

Clan buffs can be improved by consuming special resources:

Starting at +1% in stats, it will increase by +0.4% increment per unique resources not produced by the holding.

Each holding produces one kind of resource depending on its location.

A player eligible for buffs consumes one of each resource per day.

To get clan buffs for 12h of game time, a player needs to stay in a keep for 10mins.

Crates will have additional uses:

Increase siege costs.

Have 1% chance each to reduce special resources buff costs.

Can be harvested by raiders.

Nodes near a clan node gain increased rare resources drop rates.

Items crafted in player holdings are slightly more effective.

Crafting in a player holding costs 15% less and is 15% faster.

As clan nodes are now outside city walls, walls now gain an "anti scaling" aura that prevent enemies from jumping magically above them.

Players can craft ladders to bypass this aura and still climb the walls.

System detection messages are only triggered when a character has been damaged and now depend on line of sight.

Tools for a Better Coexistence

Detailed Notes,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

We also intend on improving the way holdings are shared amongst player alliances. The first step being that all allies gain the buffs provided by holdings in their vicinity. These extends also to renters. There will also be ways to set access rights for doors and other actions for alliance members and renters. Not only alliances but clans will be able to have individual characters be considered as friends and be allowed to bind in one, several or all of their holdings. For example, a regular trade partner that can come and go to fulfill quests as if they were trade requests.

Positively aligned clans will be able to have their holdings act as racial territory:

Their territory is considered racial and gain the corresponding buffs in addition to clan/alliance buffs.

All blue members of their racial alliance can bind to their bind stone for free.

As a challenge given to players, if an alliance owns all holdings on a sub-continent, their alliance and eventual racial buffs will be global to that subcontinent. And finally, as a quality of life tool, we'll add a way to trade holdings without sieges.

Raids

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Raids are kind of mini sieges.

Raid stones will be versions of siege stones that will be place-able within close proximity of holdings.

Raid stones will be available through crafting or bought from NPCs.

Once placed, raid stones will shoot a beam of light to the nearest wall and start a 15 minutes timer.

Raid stones can be destroyed.

If not destroyed before the end of the timer, the scaling protection of that targeted wall will be shut down until 5 minutes after the raid stone has been destroyed.

When scaling protections are down, player will be able to use spells or craft-able ladders to climb over that wall.

During a raid, crates will become vulnerable to "impact" damage.

Once destroyed, crates will drop a portion of the holding's special resources reserve.

Of that amount, a sub-part will be destroyed and removed from the economy.

After a raid occurred, an invulnerability period of 45 minutes will be up for the holding to avoid chain raids.

There will be an invulnerability period of 6 hours chosen by holdings owners where raids cannot occur.

Walls and Spontaneous Raiding

Detailed Notes,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

While wall now have a scaling protection, it comes in exchange for the maintenance costs that bound characters now have. This protection won't be perfect, as it can be entirely bypassed by craftable ladders. Alongside this, we are removing the system detection range for holdings.

To be detected, players must be damaged withing the range of the city, be it by a zap tower or another player, which both require line of sight. The combination of these changes means that now sneaking into a player holding is a bit slower, but is also a lot more discreet than what it used to be. There won't be the alerting sound of a noisy spell, or instant magical detection, which means raiders will be able to sneak up much closer to their intended targets.

On the other hand, when defenders do react, they can actually win a defense by destroying the ladders of their invaders. We are considering adding new workbenches that allow crafters to launch crafting actions without having to be stuck on location during the process. This should allow players that only have short play sessions to make the best of them and join friends in their adventures. But these workbenches will also be vulnerable for destruction and would be the perfect target for hit and run attacks using ladders. Making raiding a holding actually lucrative at the small scale.

Large Scale Raids

Detailed Notes,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

As we mentioned above, walls and crates will be buffed, but we also alluded to raiders. Large scale raids are sort of mini sieges that will enable attacks with a purpose other than just chain ganking whomever is around in the city. Raid stones will be versions of siege stones that will be placeable within close proximity of holdings. They'll be available through crafting or bought from NPCs.

Once placed they will shoot a beam of light to the nearest wall and start a 15 minutes timer. Owners of the holding will get a bit of time to regroup and prevent the raid from occurring. If the raid stone hasn't been destroyed at the end of the timer, the scaling protection of that section of wall will be shut down for as long as the raid stone is standing and for 5 additional minutes after it gets destroyed. When scaling protections are down, players will be able to use spells or craftable ladders to climb over that specific wall. During a raid, crates will become vulnerable to "impact" damage.

Once destroyed they will drop a portion of the holding's special resources reserve. Of that amount, a subpart is destroyed and removed from the economy. If all crates get destroyed, then the raiders may get aways with 25% of the holding's reserves and 5% will get destroyed for negative sum PvP.

This will end up giving a choice to holdings owners to either have their reserves 100% safe but be inevitably consumed, or build/repair crates and have chances to reduce consumption but at the risk of getting raided. Raids should be great multi tiered fights, starting outside the walls and around the raid stone, then on the walls as the raiders try to gain a foothold then through the streets for urban guerrilla warfare.

Of course, there will be an invulnerability window of 6h where raids cannot be triggered and after a raid occurs, there will be an invulnerability period of 45 minutes to avoid constant raiding. If all crates have been destroyed, then there is no point in raiding again.

These raids will definitely motivate players to defend their territory and have quick defense protocols. But Agon is a wide world and players can't be expected to always be on patrol duty. Fortunately, we will be introducing tools to represent territory, improve it and defend it.

12. Racial Warfare

War Fronts

Overview,

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"War fronts will be our first effort at world building. This is the first system we create that will require us to create actual content rather than player interactions, as such it will be refined over time and will see many changes as we learn the tools and observe player behaviors. In short, war fronts are areas of the game that have special rules and will have objectives to capture in the name of your racial alliance. Those are zones where you cannot use instant travel to teleport in or out. Alignment gains and penalties are also doubled."

Bullet Points,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

War front will be New Dawn's entry point for large scale PvP.

It will allow new player, casual or smaller group to experience large scale combat without the burden of war status.

Two kind of front will be added to the game : Borderlands war front (between each racial territory) and Central war front (in the middle of Agon).

Alignment gains and penalties are doubled on a war front.

War front will have capturable objectives

Racial war bonuses are only for "patriotic" players and payers of the same race of the territory or an allied race.

Blue players will be consider as "patriotic" when in the last 10 hours of game time he has gained "commission" by other means than player trade.

Commission is a currency designed to balance out our racial wars. You gain more when your faction is losing, but you have more racial buffs when wining.

Blue players may buy war bonds at their capital city and be considered patriotic for some time.

Blue players under the newbie protection are considered "patriotic" for the duration of their protection + the regular 10 hours

War front can be captured with Watchtowers, meaning that racial territory can be pushed forward by enterprising RAC clans.

ARAC clans or alliances can capture war fronts too, and will gain the buffs for themselves only instead of sharing it with a race alliance.

Detailed Notes,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

War fronts will be our first effort at world building. This is the first system we create that will require us to create actual content rather than player interactions, as such it will be refined over time and will see many changes as we learn the tools and observe player behaviors. In short, war fronts are areas of the game that have special rules and will have objectives to capture in the name of your racial alliance. Those are zones where you cannot use instant travel to teleport in or out. Alignment gains and penalties are also doubled.

There will be two kind of fronts:

The borderlands war fronts, in between each racial homelands, providing buffs to a single race.

The central war front, in the middle of Agon, providing buffs to the whole racial alliance.

Each war front will have a specific amount of objectives to capture and the capture mechanics will be similar to the player holdings siege mechanics but with much smaller timers. We want the front lines to be stable enough for people to feel rewarded, but still see daily/hourly progress to not feel as a stalemate or a meaningless grind. These mechanics will be fine tuned as we get to play test them with the playerbase.

We intend to keep some interesting "no man's land" vibe in those areas. Seeing that back in the days is what inspired us for these systems. The chaos cities at the central zone will remain and the braves will still be able to go in and out and try to take down the high end mobs that live there. But now with added challenge.

Racial Wars Bonuses

Overview,

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"The idea here is to motivate global cooperation through individualistic greed. As older games have proven, this kind of 3 way warfare works and is self regulatory if winning gives reasons for players to go out and use what they earned in other parts of the game. As always, keep in mind that all numbers are bound to change and are given as an illustration of the intent. A lot of the details are still up in the air."

Detailed Notes,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The idea here is to motivate global cooperation through individualistic greed. As older games have proven, this kind of 3 way warfare works and is self regulatory if winning gives reasons for players to go out and use what they earned in other parts of the game. As always, keep in mind that all numbers are bound to change and are given as an illustration of the intent. A lot of the details are still up in the air.

Borderlands Racial War Fronts have for capturable objectives:

10 Supply camps: +1 drop on nodes for this racial land.

6 Guard Towers: +0.05 skillup modifier in this racial land.

3 keeps: +1% drop rate in this racial land.

The Center War Front has:

20 Supply Camps: +1 drop on nodes in racial alliance lands.

10 Guard Towers: +0.05 skillup modifier in racial alliance lands.

7 Keeps: +1% drop rate in racial alliance lands.

Which would result in a rounded up average(max) bonus in racial alliance territories:

+17 (40) items in harvesting nodes

+0.5(1.1) skillup modifier

+6%(10%) drop rate

Racial war bonuses are only for players that are considered "patriotic" and are on land owned by their racial alliance. A mahirim would get Ork land bonuses when in Ork land. So they can fight in those borderlands as well. A blue player is considered "patriotic" when in the last 10h of game time he has gained "commission" by other means than player trade. Commission points are a currency designed to balance out our racial wars, it is explained in the next page so keep on reading.

Alternatively, blue players may buy war bonds at their capital city and be considered patriotic for some time. (helping the war effort through a gold sink) Blue players under the newbie protection are considered "patriotic" for the duration of their protection + the regular 10 hours. (they are just "kids") Of course, players lose this state if they go red or are part of an ARAC clan/alliance.

Watchtower and Clan Territory Interactions

Overview,

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"It was capital for us that the racial wars do not interfere in what we consider the ultimate end game of Darkfall: empire building. To that end, and you've seen glimpses of it already, the watchtower feature and racial warfares interact with each other."

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It was capital for us that the racial wars do not interfere in what we consider the ultimate end game of Darkfall: empire building. To that end, and you've seen glimpses of it already, the watchtower feature and racial warfares interact with each other.

First and foremost, clan territory can be set to be considered as racial alliance territory. Which means that clans have incentives to see war fronts succeed. We hope to see some clans lead the charge, provide a backbone and mentor the community. We expect a lot of inter clan drama too, which is always fascinating. Watchtowers can be sieged by anyone, which means that a viable strategy to win a war front could be to attack a specific clan's territory to draw them away from racial objectives.

In addition, and this is the most interesting part: War fronts can be captured with watchtowers. As clans expand their territories, they can overlap with war fronts. When that happens, a clan gets the option to build a watchtower on the nearest captured objective and expand on the adjacent ones. Once they have a watchtower and an objective near a "side" of a war front, they can expand their territory normally on the other side.

This means that a racial land can be conquered by another race if enough players work together By capturing and taking ownership of war front objectives, a clan/alliance can increase their clan buffs as they improve their faction buffs.ARAC clans/alliances can capture war fronts too, except that when they win, they keep the buffs for themselves only.

We want this to be seen as a challenge to the community. Players will really be able to go after capturing the whole world, either as a racial alliance and collaborating with random players, or as an independent force forging their dominion over the world and challenging the racial kingdoms. Of course, we will try to keep this whole system balanced and remaining an easy to get involved with mechanic.

Commission Points

Overview,

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"Commission points are a currency that can be obtained in war fronts and in certain racial quests/events. Commission points are one of the very few things in Darkfall that will not drop on death. The goal of adding such a currency is to have something of value for players to earn in racial war fronts. For established players, it will be to trade in for advantages or keeping positive alignment buffs active. For newer players, it will be a great way to get into the game, earn some early equipment trough PvP and have a generally more positive experience.

It will also be used as a balance mechanic to encourage players to fight back even when losing."

Bullet Points,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Goal of commission point is to make war front self sustainable without unbalancing actual economy and give player an opportunity to skill up their character through pvp.

Commission points can be earned in war front and specific racial quests/events.

Commission points cannot be dropped on death.

When losing a war front, re-winning it is giving players much more commission points than usual.

Commission points are a currency that can be obtained in war fronts and in certain racial quests/events. Commission points are one of the very few things in Darkfall that will not drop on death. The goal of adding such a currency is to have something of value for players to earn in racial war fronts. For established players, it will be to trade in for advantages or keeping positive alignment buffs active. For newer players, it will be a great way to get into the game, earn some early equipment trough PvP and have a generally more positive experience.

It will also be used as a balance mechanic to encourage players to fight back even when losing.

A medium amount of commission points is gained for each death of an engaged enemy.

A large amount of commission points is gained when being engaged at the successful capture/defense of a racial control point.

To serve as a catch up mechanic and a motivation to fight back, commission gains are modified by the percentage of control point owned by the opposing teams on the specific front you are on:

When losing a front, you gain more commission to re-win it.

Winning a control point when being the underdog grants much more.

When winning a front, you have more racial land bonuses

The first purpose of commission points is to enable the patriotic state that unlocks racial territory buffs. Since they can be traded between players, and some commission points are added automatically to global clan accounts, players living geographically far away from war fronts can still get access to the patriotic status through trading or clan sharing. A secondary purpose of commission points is to make playing war fronts a self sustainable activity.

There will be NPCs in War Front Zones that will exchange commission for:

GOLD / meditation points.

Reagents / arrows / battlespikes.

Base gear up to r40 / bone armor / plate armor.

Food / potions.

Racial mounts.

A version of each cannon that can be placed only in war fronts

A version of each war hulk that can be spawned in war fronts only. If driven out of the zone, the driver is warned and after 30 secs, they self destruct.(gives time to turn back)

Note that we removed meditation points purchase with gold, which makes commission points even more valuable.The base gear has only base durability and no enchants so it will be inferior to crafted gear.We wanted to get people to try and enjoy the big tools in the game, so war fronts should see a lot of cannon and warhulk usage.

The goal here is to let individual players try to live off racial wars and give an alternative way of progressing a character through PvP only. It will be less efficient than group PvE or territory control, but it will open up new possibilities. But that's not all we want to achieve with racial warfare. We want it to be relevant to organized groups as well and be a gateway to high end PvE.

Contested Central Dungeon

Overview,

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"This change is inspired by other games that had very successful faction warfare. The main idea is to give a reason for organized groups or more PvE oriented players to join war fronts. To that end, we will transform the center dungeon in a global racial alliance reward that gets unlocked once the majority of the central war front gets captured by a racial alliance. If there are players in it at the time the dungeon changes hands, they will still have the ability to exit, but will be at risk of being purged by the new owners."

Bullet Points,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Idea is to motivate PvE oriented players to join war fronts.

Center dungeon will become a global racial alliance reward.

Center dungeon will be unlocked once the majority of the central war front gets captured by a single racial alliance.

Racial bonus are effective in the dungeon

The center dungeon is the only way to reach the Demon lair.

Demon lair will not be just one encounter, but a reason to camp 24/7 with very high risks but very high reward.

The center dungeon and the Demon lair will be a great way to gain a lot of skill ups and loot. But you'll have to carry it all back to a safe bank

Detailed Notes,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This change is inspired by other games that had very successful faction warfare. The main idea is to give a reason for organized groups or more PvE oriented players to join war fronts. To that end, we will transform the center dungeon in a global racial alliance reward that gets unlocked once the majority of the central war front gets captured by a racial alliance. If there are players in it at the time the dungeon changes hands, they will still have the ability to exit, but will be at risk of being purged by the new owners.

We will expand the dungeon with world building and we will do some technical alterations:

No one can teleport in or out of the dungeon.

Center dungeon has a base x1.5 skill up modifier.

Racial + racial alliance bonus are effective in the dungeon.

Center dungeon will remain a maze with several high end spots.

Center dungeon will have various high level chests.

Alignment changes are doubled in the dungeon.

The center dungeon is the only way to reach the Demon lair.

The demon lair will not be just one encounter but will become a reason to camp 24/7 with very high risks but also very high rewards.

Players cannot port in or out of the demon lair.

The Demon respawns every 4h + 0-2h random variance.

The Demon respawn time has a map timer.

The Demon has his base loot buffed in addition to scaling.

The Demon chest is removed from Agon but will be reintroduced again later on.

The lair is also home of Demon Spawnlings that:

do not spawn when demon is alive.

spawn one individual for each player in the area.

spawn every 2mins, even if already spawned.(swarm if not handled)

provide no skillup and no loot except for "chaos accretion" tools.

There are "chaos crystals" in the demon lair:

They can be harvested with a chaos accretion tool.

Each tick they drop as a random advanced node.

They are an infinite source.

The idea here is that you may gain a lot of skill ups and loot and mats trough the center dungeon and demon lair, but you can be cut off at any time by your side losing the control, you can be wiped by the spawnlings or the Demon itself and you cannot port out.

You have to run back from the dungeon trough a warzone to your racial area before being able to recall/bank. We expect this change to be a great source of conflict and provide tense situations, epic victories and catastrophic failures. Now that we have touched upon both our clan and racial warfare, maybe it is time that we talk a bit about warfare tools.

"This one is pretty simple. We want the world to feel "normal". Which means that roads need to serve a purpose, bridges need to be worth making a detour to cross and running through deep jungle should be a bit more time consuming than follow explored paths."

Bullet Points,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The goal is to make the world feel "normal", with activities on roads, caravans going from one town to another and so on.

Make roads serve a purpose by being faster to travel on.

Make bridge be worth making a detour by adding current to rivers.

Make jungle exploration time consuming compared to straight path.

Detailed Notes,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Roads will allow mounts, vehicles and players to move faster than in the wilderness. We will also be adding more roads to the game, linking player holdings to the NPC road network. We're also adding some drawbacks to moving in water, like currents and durability losses. And as we master the world building tools, we will make the world more "bushy" so that there are less straight paths out in the wilderness and make it require more skill to navigate.

The advantages of that, for game design, are that we create choke points and known routes that can be watched by bandits and create emergent gameplay. It also makes the world, in the eyes of new players, smaller and larger at the same time. Smaller because travels can effectively be sped up but larger because what is away from the roads is wild and unknown.

Caravans

Overview,

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"As we've touched on before, we intend on having local banking and localized resources. These features usually mean that there can be a healthy trading meta game emerging. We want to make that even easier by providing tools that allow caravans."

Bullet Points,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The goal is to make caravans the standard way to transport wares, warhulks, ships and siege equipment.

Mount figurines show remaining health and what bonus they have.

Mounts are protected from stealing for 20 seconds after being spawned.

Tailors may craft different "mount packs" :

Personal: can be accessed by the owner.

Group: can be accessed by the owner party.

Clan -> can be accessed by the clan..

When accessed through secondary use, mounts offer a new option : "Cargo".

"Cargo" option opens a storage window where items can be added, similar to a strongbox.

Once a mount has something in its "Cargo", it cannot be ridden or despawned.

"Cargo" mounts will follow the owner at speed depending on the mount.

"Cargo" weight limit will vary depending on mount.

"Cargo" mount will drown underwater.

"Cargo" mount, if killed, will only drop 50% of its content, the rest being destroyed.

If the owner dies, the mount will remain in place.

"Cargo" mounts will have several controls :t

Follow me : By owner, party member or clan member

Wait here : By owner, party member or clan member

Gain control : By anyone, takes 2 minutes channeling.

"Caravan leader" title will allow a player to have several "Cargo" mounts following him.

Detailed Notes,

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

As we've touched on before, we intend on having local banking and localized resources. These features usually mean that there can be a healthy trading meta game emerging. We want to make that even easier by providing tools that allow caravans.

Here is a list of some of the changes we have planned:

Mount figurines show remaining health and what advanced bonus they have.

When a mount is spawned, there is a 20 second delay during which only the owner can climb on.

When a rider unmounts, there is a 20 seconds delay during which the mount is secure.

Tailors may craft different "mount packs":

Personal: the cheapest pack, can only be accessed by the owner.

Group: a bit more expensive, can only be accessed by the owner's group.

Clan: the most expensive version, accessible by the owner's clan members.

When a player has a pack in his inventory, he has new options on spawned mounts: "equip xxxx pack".

When accessed through secondary use, mounts offer a new option: "Cargo".

The cargo option opens a storage window where items may be placed, similar to a strongbox.

Once a mount has something in its cargo, it cannot be ridden or despawned. anymore It will follow its owner at a speed depending on the mount:

Battle horns go at human running speed.

Normal mounts go at human sprinting speed.

Bluetails runner go at normal mount speed.

Different mounts can carry various weights:

Bluetail: 100kg.

Normal: 200kg.

Battle horns : 300kg.

They can carry more, but will be overburdened and slowed down.

A pack mule cannot go in water or it will drown.

If a mount is killed, it will drop a grave with only 50% of it's content, the rest being destroyed.

If the owner of a mount dies, the mount will remain in place.

Mounts that have cargo have various new controls:

Follow me: owner, or group member, or clan member.

Wait here: owner, or group member, or clan member.

Gain control: anyone, takes 2 minutes of channeling.

Since the mounts have various speed in pack-mule mode, depending on the chosen mount, the owner will have different choices in transportation mode. For instance with a normal mount, a player has to be on foot or risk outrunning his pack mule, but he may be on a Battle ark as well and both. Note that Battle Arks have slots for strongboxes and can serve as armed convoys with pack mules following its passengers. On the other hand, a player using a Bluetail pack mule can use a normal mount for a quick trade run. The "Caravan leader" title upgrades the amount of pack mules that follows a character. Up to 6 mounts can follow a maxed out caravan leader.

Note that ships and warhulks figurines will always overburden a character, even if he has enough space in theory. Pack mules and vehicles with strongboxes are the only way to transfer these quickly. Whether it is to prepare a siege or bring a boat quickly to the shore, pack mules are the solution. At a later date, we will add new mounts, like actual mules and camels. We will also eventually upgrade the taming system to include a breeding system to obtain improved or specialized mounts.

We hope that these systems create trade routes that follow semi predictable paths and create emergent game play opportunities. Highway men and escorts could become a daily activity and a dedicated play style for some. These tools to improve trading are the first step of our economic improvements.

Warhulks Revamp

Overview,

Quote

"The general idea is to give all warhulks a reason to be used and make them a common sight in Agon. We've already added plenty of daily objectives, but we also need to make warhulks combat engaging and a real selling point for Darkfall."

Bullet Points,

Quote

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Give all Warhulks a reason to be used and make them a common sight in Agon.

Warhulks cost less to craft.

Orbs can now be crafted.

Warhulks are not destroyed by water but move very slowly instead.

Warhulks except he Fun Hulks cannot be carried around without overburdening.

Warhulks need to be moved in mounts or strongboxes.

Warhulks will have a specific role:

Spider Scarabs: Anti vehicle role.

Storm Hammer: Anti infantry role.

Battle Ark: Caravan, support and re-supply role.

Vile Forge: Mobile Artillery role.

Detailed Notes,

Quote

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The general idea is to give all warhulks a reason to be used and make them a common sight in Agon. We've already added plenty of daily objectives, but we also need to make warhulks combat engaging and a real selling point for Darkfall.

Let's get straight to business:

Warhulks cost less to craft. Orbs can now be crafted with an expensive recipe as well.

Warhulks are not destroyed by water but move at extremely slow speed.

Warhulks figurines, except the funhulk, cannot be carried around without overburdening. They need to be transported in mounts or strongboxes.

Warhulks each have a very specific role in which they are very efficient.

Spider Scarabs:

Does bonus damages against other vehicles.

Does next-to-no damage against buildings.

Does limited damage to players.

As fast and maneuverable than a fast mount.

Anti vehicle role.

StormHammer:

Does bonus damages against players.

Does no damages to buildings or vehicles.

As fast as a normal mount.

Less maneuverable.

Anti infantry role.

Battle Ark:

Does average damages to everything.

Goes as fast as a sprinting player, but not very maneuverable

Has two upgrade slots that may contain:

Healing chant orbs.

Buffing chant orbs (all three hastes).

Strongbox slots.

Support and resupply role.

May be used as an heavy armored caravan.

VileForge:

Does bonus damages against buildings.

Static canon still do more damages, but they can't move.

Does moderate damages to everything else.

Goes as fast as a sprinting player but not maneuverable.

Mobile Artillery role.

Naval Combat

Overview,

Quote

"Naval combat is one of the biggest selling points of Darkfall. Very few games out there offer something like that. It required coordination and has such a cool factor that even being on small ships was thrilling. Unfortunately, the game was set up in ways that ships were a rare sight. There was also some flaws in design that inhibited the depth of gameplay that could arise from naval warfare.

Just like warhulks, all ships need a purpose and a specific niche in which they can shine. But more than that, they need to become the best and almost only way to fight and travel on water. We're also considering modifying some of the actual naval gameplay, notably repairs, to encourage more fleet interactions and enable some interesting piracy features."

General Changes

Bullet Points,

Quote

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Goal is to make fighting underwater by yourself a pain and promote ships and real "naval" combat.

River flows most of the time.

Random current in large bodies of water.

We will temporarily prevent bows from shooting underwater to test other alternatives.

Specific physical weapon like harpoons and water spells will be uses to do ranged damage underwater.

Melee attack speed and damage are halved in water.

Ranged attacks (bows included) can still be done from the surface to out of water targets.

Everything takes more stamina/mana in water.

Equipped gear takes some durability damage from being in water.

Add sea predators attracted by the smell of blood.

Astrolab and mariners Astrolab are now craftable.

Ships costs are all reviewed in order to be balanced and used daily.

Ships can be crafted in some NPC cities but will cost 15% more materials.

Ship figurines cannot be carried around without being overburded.

Ships figurine need to be transported with mounts or strongboxes.

If boarded, ships can be sabotaged by lowering their anchor.

Captain can despawn ships from the wheel.

Ships can only be spawned or despawned from harbors.

We will add a lot more harbors around Agon.

Pinnace, raft and launch can be spawned/despawned everywhere instantly.

All battle ships are now equipped natively with underwater bombs.

In addition to their water bombs, ship can now slightly raise their boarding nets.

Player with the Sailor title may climb raised nets.

Mast nets on ships are climbable like ladders.

Players with the sailor title can sit on top of masts equipped with crows-nets

Crows-nets are a position from which you can't repair but have a bonus at spotting/heal range/etc.

Fishing rods work from the side of a ship, even higher ones.

Captain may order boarding planks to extend so that higher ships have advantages when boarding.

Detailed Notes,

Quote

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Here is a quick bullet list of what we would like to change:

Astrolabs and mariner astrolabs are now craftable, but the recipes will be expensive.

Ships costs are all readjusted in order to be balanced but used daily.

Ships can be crafted in some NPC cities but will cost 15% more materials.

Ship figurines, except the raft, cannot be carried around without overburdening. They need to be transported with mounts or strongboxes.

If boarded, ships can be sabotaged by lowering their anchor (20sec with noises).

Captains can despawn ships from the wheel.

Ships can only be spawned/despawned around harbors.

Spawning takes 30 seconds.

We will increase amount of harbors in the world (with NPC ones).

Pinnace, raft and launch can be spawned/despawned everywhere and instantly.

All battle ships are now equipped natively with underwater bombs

In addition to the underwater bombs, ship can now slightly raise their boarding nets.

Players with the Sailor title may climb raised nets.

Mast nets on ships are climbable like ladders.

Players with the sailor title can sit on top masts equipped with crows-nets.

Crows-nests are a position from which you can't repair but have a bonus at spotting/heal range/etc. Can be combined with

telescopes.

There are crew quarters on ships with games and things to do. (fluff and charged buff)

Fishing rods work from the side of a ship, even higher ones.

Captain may order boarding planks to extend so that higher ships have advantages when boarding.

The general idea being to add the quality of life changes that were asked a lot back in the days. We're also adding some fluff and utilities to make ships and long trips fun.

We're also giving purposes to the Sailor title.

Customizing Ships

Overview,

Quote

"The first change we want to implement is complete fluff. We want to give players the ability to name ships the same way we can name bags."

Bullet Points,

Quote

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

We will add the ability to name ships at the time of crafting.

Ship can receive several upgrade slots depending on its size like Sails, Rudders, Metal Plating or Reinforced Structure. Slots will be limited to have ship "builds".

Several persistent modules can be crafted for ships like Fishing nets or strongboxes.

Several destroyable at despawn modules can be crafted like buff orbs, healing orbs and even bindstones.

Detailed Notes,

Quote

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The first change we want to implement is complete fluff. We want to give players the ability to name ships the same way we can name bags.

Instead of:Brigantine(Random Guy)We would see:USS Enterprise(Captain Kirk)Clan of the Federation

A ship's name will be permanent once set, this means that even if it changes hands, the enterprise will always be the enterprise.

This goes in line with the customization system we want to implement for ships. We want people to get attached to their ships as they survive encounters, and try to recapture them when they have been lost in battle.

Aside from a name, a ship will receive a few upgrade slots depending on its size that can be filled with craftable parts:

Sails: Slight speed increase to ship.

Rudders: Slight turning radius increase to ship.

Metal Plating: Slightly decreases damage taken, decreases speed.

Reinforced Structure: Slight increases ship health.

One captain could prefer to go full sails for a merchant ship while another would take a healthy mixture of each for more versatility. It won't happen straight away, but we consider making upgrades be equipped and visible just like armors are on characters. Perhaps even have individual hitboxes to target and destroy them. For example shooting at the sails to catch up and board another ship.

Aside from upgrades, ships will be able to have a variety of craftable modules, some of which will be destroyed at despawn:

Won't get destroyed until unequipping:

Fishing nets: the same fishing nets we're all familiar with.

Strongboxes: Like their land based counterparts. Useful to keep the crew resupplied or have a merchant vessel.

Will get destroyed at despawn:

Buff orbs: Will provide a pulse that provides a general haste effect (ranged, casting and melee speed buff).

Healing orbs: Will heal anyone nearby.

Bindstones: can provide a limited amount of binds for the crew.

With those, not only will ship be unique and custom fit for the crew, they will also have new roles in combat and in the daily life of players.

Ship Repairs

Overview,

Quote

"Naval combat was very much a matter of whom could out repair the other one. And repairing was not a fun or glamorous activity. Most of the time it was just hiding in the hull, repairing on cooldown. We hope to make it a bit more interesting."

Bullet Points,

Quote

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Only a limited amount of player can repair a ship at the same time.

More people can repair the ship using "repair planks" which are craftable items.

To use these "repair planks", ships must be stopped.

Captain can severe these planks, and abandon their repairman if they need a quick get away.

Detailed Points,

Quote

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Naval combat was very much a matter of whom could out repair the other one. And repairing was not a fun or glamorous activity. Most of the time it was just hiding in the hull, repairing on cooldown. We hope to make it a bit more interesting.

First, only a limited amount of people can repair a ship at the same time. The number will increase with the size of the ship, to give them more durability. But for two ships of the same size, piloting and accurate shooting will be more important than who has the most repair shards.

However, more people can repair the ship from "repair planks" which are craftable items that can be used from the captain's inventory or the ship's strongbox. The ship has to be stopped and it takes a bit of time to lower the planks, and a bit of time to raise them back up. The captain may chose to cut the ropes to start moving again, but that means losing the planks and whatever crew were standing on it.

For a single ship, this is meant for repairs after surviving an encounter or when using a ship in PvE in between Kraken spawns. For a fleet, this should open up tactics to cover a friendly ship while the crew does hastened repairs but are immobilized in the process. We will play test the lowering speed for the repair planks to have this be a viable tactic but very hard to pull off.

Boarding and Piracy Mechanics

Overview,

Quote

"We already mentioned a boarding plank that the captain can extend. This is meant to board other ships but can also be used to make an unruly crew walk the plank. Yaarrrr."

Bullet Points,

Quote

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Add boarding plank deployable by the captain.

The goal is to give incentives for players to try and board ships without necessarily sinking them.

Ship below a certain amount of health will stop and will be unrepairable.

Ship will then gain health back over time and allow reparation once at 80% health (should be around 15 minutes to go up from 5% to 80%)

A ship strongbox can only be used by friendlies of the original owner.

A ship strongbox content can be seen by anyone.

Craking open a strongbox will take 10 minutes.

Craking open a strongbox will destroy 50% of its content.

When a ship is sunk, 85% of all content in strongboxes is destroyed.

In this case everybody wins by getting 100% of the content for pirates, and traders keeping their ships.

It also gives an occasion to come back and maybe reclaim a ship.

Detailed Notes,

Quote

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

We already mentioned a boarding plank that the captain can extend. This is meant to board other ships but can also be used to make an unruly crew walk the plank. Yaarrrr. Aside from that, we want to give incentives for players to try and board ships and either capture them or loot them without necessarily sinking them.

It will regenerate on its own up to 5% hp per minute and It will be able to move and be repaired again at 80% (so 15mins stranded).

A ship strongbox can only be used by friendlies of the original owner.

However, everyone can see the content of the strongbox.

Cracking open a strongbox will take 10mins uninterrupted on a static ship.

Cracking open a strongbox will destroy 50% of its content.

When a ship is sunk, 85% of all content in strongboxes is destroyed. This should hopefully encourage pirates to board and try to threaten merchant ships: Give us your bounty or lose your ship.

If the crew gets wiped out, boarders are left with three choices:

Sinking the ship for 15% of the loot.

Cracking open the strongbox for 50% of the loot.

Waiting for the ship to be able to move again and capture it.

In all cases, there is a material sink when a ship gets defeated and the crew doesn't or cannot collaborate. In some case, if the pirates get greedy, it leaves time for backup to come and salvage the ship and perhaps take revenge on the previous defeat.If the crew collaborates, then they can give more than 50% of the loot to the pirates and then be left alone with their ship repairing.

We're not sure how players will use these systems, but we're looking forward to hear of legendary crews plundering the high seas of Agon.

Individual Ship Changes

Bullet Points,

Quote

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Ships will have their own situational strength:

Raft: Basic transportation.

Launch: Fast boarding ship.

Pinnace: Light troop transport.

Sloop: Light anti ship.

Brigantine: Medium versatile ship.

Schooner: Good against large ship, vulnerable to Sloops.

Junk: Siege glass canon, needs to be escorted.

Reed boat: fragile fast courier / merchant ship.

Composite raft: fragile merchant boat.

Large raft: Fishing ship or warhulk dropship.

Barque: Sturdy versatile ship.

Ship of the line: Good escort ship for merchant convoys.

Frigate: Ultimate siege ship.

Man o' War: Occupation flagship.

Detailed Notes,

Quote

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

In the same spirit than the warhulks changes, we're going to try a specific niches to all classes of ships.

Raft:

Is now as fast as player sprint swimming (speed 1).

Basic transportation, doesn't make you go faster but longer.

Launch:

Half the price than before.

Goes at speed 1.5.

Expandable fast boarding ship.

Pinnace:

Goes at speed 1.3.

Somewhat resistant to land based attack (canons, warhulks, towers).

Weak against ships.

Light troop transport.

Sloop:

Goes at speed 1.4.

Very maneuverable.

Bonus damage against ships.

Weak against land based attacks.

Light anti ship. Meant to be used in a squad and circle larger ships.

Brigantine:

Goes at speed 1.3.

Can equip 2 special module (fishing, strongbox, healing, buffing).

Medium versatile ship.

Schooner:

Goes at speed 1.2.

Bonus damage against ships.

Resistant to ship attacks.

Can equip 1 strongbox.

Skirmish ship. Meant to follow fleeing ships, damage them enough to slow them down or run away while doing more damage all

"The goals of our economy improvements are to keep the inflation in check and give meaningful gameplay for harvesters, crafters and traders. As we have said in the description of our vision for the game, New Dawn will be focused on empire building and conquest, but for it to work we need a thriving virtual world economy to serve both as a fuel and a goal for war. The economy will be the most looked at and analyzed data set of the game. It is essential to the success and sustainability of New Dawn."

Bullet Points,

Quote

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Goal is to keep the inflation in check and give meaningful gameplay for harvesters, crafters and traders.

System controlled gold sinks will be dynamically set by the amount of "active" currency in the world (like NPC price for reagents.

Vendors and other housing related rare loot drops will also be craftable or purchasable as a gold/mats sink alternative to luck.

Orbs and Astrolabs will also gain a crafting recipe.

There will be a small durability loss variation based on gear inflation.

On knockdown, all equipped armors will take 1 point of durability loss altered by variation.

To allow for sparring/training, this is disabled when knockdown by an allied character.

Arenas, an upgrade building in player holdings, will also mitigate durability loss.

On gank, all equipped armor will take 5 points of durability loss, altered by variation.

On blocking/parrying, both character weapons lose increased durability.

Detailed Notes,

Quote

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

We will be adding a lot of new faucets in the game in the form of rewards and incentives to fight over contested resources. We try to balance out each system individually, with watchtowers and village parts taking resources to build and wars having ongoing costs, but we will still end up with an increased resource creation. We need to balance that with increased resource destruction.

To that end, we will do the following changes:

System controlled gold sinks will be dynamically set by the amount of "active" currency in the world:

NPC gold prices for reagents,

housing rents,

vendor taxes,

high end crafting gold prices,

war status ongoing costs.

Vendors and other housing related rare loot drops will also be craftable or purchasable as a gold/mats sink alternative to luck.

Orbs and astrolabes will also gain a crafting recipe.

There will be a small dynamic durability loss variation based on gear inflation.

On knockdown, all equipped armor will take 1 point of durability loss, altered by variation.

To allow for sparring/training, this is disabled when knock downed by an ally character.

Arenas, an upgrade building in player holdings, will also mitigate durability losses.

On gank, all equipped armor will take 5 points of durability loss, altered by variation.

On blocking/parrying, both attacker and defender weapons lose increased durability.

Some of these change have an added benefit. For instance adding recipes or ways to purchase items that were previously rare loot removes luck from the equation for players that dislike it. As of durability losses, we will leave ways to do sparring and training without increased costs, even at a reduced cost. Social hooks are worth enough to not discourage friendly activities and new player mentorship, even if it could have been a great sink.

In general, the durability losses changes should lower the daily gear bag level which will help to keep the power gap in check. We want to keep rank 30-40 items relevant so that newer or casual players have less of a barrier of entry to PvP. Less grind, more action. Increased durability losses also increase the demand for crafters and gives us tools to make dedicated crafters and harvesters valuable.

Crafting - A Full-time Activity

Overivew,

Quote

"While Darkfall boasts a great combat system, offering PvP and PvE as viable and rewarding full time activities, economy related activities were mostly a second though and served as side projects for players."

Bullet Points,

Quote

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The goal is to give crafters meaningful gameplay, to the point that one should be able to only work on improving his industry and market presence.

Base durability is a recipes max durability before character skills and stats modifier impact it. (If a sword has 100 dura, but a crafter manages to create it with 130 dura, it will start losing potency at 90. Crafter gave an extra dura bonus).

Potency will be lowered down to a low roll of a previous rank and will be reached at 20% base durability.

Gear can be repaired, but it will be reserved to crafters with the proper title.

Repairing materials take mats and lowers its max durability.

A crafter that repairs its own creation does it better.

Salvaging skills, pick a bag and gain around 50% or crafting mats back.

Titles also increases the impact of wisdom on random rolls and max durability.

True forge skills only gain xp when crafting higher end items.

Many weapons cosmetic choices and individual item upgrades.

Vendors will be more available due to changes made to housing.

Detailed Notes,

Quote

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

While Darkfall boasts a great combat system, offering PvP and PvE as viable and rewarding full time activities, economy related activities were mostly a second though and served as side projects for players.

We wish to give crafters meaningful gameplay, to the point that one should be able to only work on improving his industry and market presence.

Base durability is a recipes max durability before character skills and stats modifier impact it. For example, if a sword is 100 base durability, but a crafter manages to create it with 130 max durability, it will still start losing potency at 90. The crafter added an extra buffer of 30 durability points before potency losses.

Potency will be lowered down to a low roll of a previous rank and will be reached at 20% base durability.

As always, numbers will be tweaked with play testing.

Items can be repaired, but it will be reserved to crafters with the proper title.

Repairing an item takes materials and lowers the max durability.

A crafter that repairs its own creations does it better.

Salvaging skill, pick a bag and gain around 50% of crafting mats back.

Titles also increase the impact of wisdom on random rolls and max durability.

True forge skills only gain xp when crafting higher end items:

0-25: rank0-20, grenades, chain, banded, cloth and padded armor.

25-50: rank30-40, scale, plate, leather, bones and studded armor.

50- 75: rank 50, tailoring mastery robes/armor, full plate.

75-100: rank 60+, lvl 25+ armor and tailoring mastery items.

Weapons cosmetic choices and individual item upgrades:

Most designs are unlocked through leveling, as it was originally.

Any unlocked design can be crafted to any rank with added costs.

Ranks will still be noticeable but through texturing and coloring.

Some designs, like mob sets or racial motifs, will be dropped as recipes and serve as rare rewards for other systems.

Vendors will be more available due to changes made to housing.

A positive side effect of these changes is that now PvP items will be used longer and have more chances to switch hands. No longer will people use extremely low durability items and secured kills will be worth more.Crafted items also gain more advantages compared to monster drops.

The repair mechanic creates an opportunity for ongoing relationships with specific crafters. People will buy high rolls items, invest in enchanting them, and will want to keep them as long as possible.

Separating crafting masteries and true forge skills and locking them behind titles will also prevent the self-sustainable characters that existed back in the days. Either within a clan or through vendors and market places, people will need to interact with each other and have incentives to create relationships.

We're also leveraging the large quantity of art assets Darkfall had by getting some of the lesser used models back into the viable pool.We're also going to introduce monster loot into the crafting system through dropable and tradable recipes. Things like black robes or Dark Knight armor will be viable as daily gear. We will also try to get items to have their own racial style rather than magically change depending on who wears them. It should create some interesting trades.

This will give a greater freedom of choice for players to create their own look and be recognizable on the battlefield. And it will also give long term goals for crafters by obtaining popular styles.

In the end, we believe that these changes will make high level crafters be very valuable and impact how the world runs.

Banking Revamp and Long Distance Trades

Overview,

Quote

"Even if we improve the lives of crafters and offer tools for trading, we still won't have a thriving economy that serves to fuel conflict and player interactions. For this we need to create geographical sub markets alongside partially localized resources. This will allow enterprising players to act as a bridge between sub markets and make a profit. And that will enable equally enterprising players to watch the roads and wait for an interesting "business deal" to pass along."

Allow enterprising players to act as a bridge between sub markets and make a profit.

We will remove global banking. Each bank will be a separate entity.

Gnome trade-posts will be introduced for gold transaction but with a fee.

Market places will be added to the game, with a choice of contract options.

As described in the player holdings changes, we will remove portal chambers.

Runestones, recalls and nexuses require you to have less than 75 weight on you and one additional small figurine. Enough for basic gear and one mount or raft.

House and bindstone recalls have a maximum range.

Runestones/nexuses are the addresses while portal shards are the fuel. The longer the distance, the more portal shards get consumed.

Holdings will produce unique resources that can be used to increase clan buffs.

The more variety and quantity of said resources, the better the buffs.

We will keep the partial localization of loot tables as is and only improve it when needed.

We will introduce r50 and r80 resources and more specialized recipes requiring bridging far away lands for both daily and high end gear.

Detailed Notes,

Quote

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Even if we improve the lives of crafters and offer tools for trading, we still won't have a thriving economy that serves to fuel conflict and player interactions. For this we need to create geographical sub markets alongside partially localized resources. This will allow enterprising players to act as a bridge between sub markets and make a profit. And that will enable equally enterprising players to watch the roads and wait for an interesting "business deal" to pass along.

To that end, we will do the following changes:

We will remove global banking. Each bank will be a separate entity.

Gnome trade-posts will be introduced:

They have a global and local gold accounts.

Funds can be transfered from one to the other.

Transactions take 10 minutes to complete and have a fee based on inflation.

They sell vendors at a high price impacted by inflation.

Market places will be added to the game:

Sell and buy orders can be placed on an auction house.

Auction houses have fees based on a percentage of transaction values.

Vendors can be rented for a duration and a single flat fee.

As described in the player holdings changes, we will remove portal chambers.

Runestones, recalls and nexuses require you to have less than 75 weight on you and one additional small figurine. Enough for basic gear and one mount or raft.

House and bindstone recalls have a maximum range.

Runestones/nexuses are the addresses while portal shards are the fuel. The longer the distance, the more portal shards get consumed.

Holdings will produce unique resources that can be used to increase clan buffs.

The more variety and quantity of said resources, the better the buffs.

We will keep the partial localization of loot tables as is and only improve it when needed.

We will introduce r50 and r80 resources and more specialized recipes requiring bridging far away lands for both daily and high end gear.

Please note that we are open to the idea of regional banking for starter cities of a single racial land in order to help out newer players, but we want to try fully localized first.

With the market places and gnome trade-posts we will be adding tools for trading resources and at the same time new gold sinks. Auction houses will be for bulk trading that need to stay for a long time. Perhaps more suited to materials and consumables.

The vendors will be more suited for single high value items trades. If the items sells quickly, then it will cost less than the percentage fees of the auction house, but at the risk of paying for nothing. Housing vendors will remain relevant as they come at a high one time fee, but the cost will be absorbed as the player creates a customer base and increases the frequency of trades. This should give versatility to the way players trade.

We also limit instant travels so that it doesn't make our other changes meaningless. It will also prevent instant travel from being an escape mechanic. If your party members have raided enemy territory and are full of loot, don't expect to get away easily. It gives a shot for defenders to regroup and recover their possessions. It will also require some logistics to bring tools of war to a siege as cannons, ships and warhulks cannot be teleported with.

And finally, on top of the existing localized loot tables, we will introduce more reasons for long distance trading. Hopefully this will be incentives enough to create emergent gameplay. And with this, we have touched upon all the important core systems we hope to improve for New Dawn's release. We will now touch on to smaller GUI and quality of life changes before moving on to post-launch and expansion material.

15. Interface and Various Improvements

Bullet Points,

Quote

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Right click is blocking by default, with interface trigger switched to ~ or ² or escape.

Generic button for whirlwind, power attack, and other melee skills.

Permanent auto attack but waiting 50% of swing time in between each swing. It would be faster by hand, but not straining too much for pve.

Slow auto looting, slower than by hand, but avoid too much repetition in pve. A loot bag can be set.

Toggled sprint: we have auto run, why not auto sprint.

Context impacted keys: If having a staff out then key E becomes a certain spell, if weapon it is power attack. Configurable by user.

Double binds hotbar slots, for 1h+shield or staff+default spell.

The hotbar can be switched to horizontal.

Drag and dropping on bags put items inside the bag.

Bags and paperdoll can be resized.

Bags can be left open for when you bring up the UI (like the backpack).

When crafting, you can define a container for the resulting items.

Remove lean left/right on mounts. Just lean automatically where you aim.

Does this poster work for Ub3rgames? looks like alot of work but very good work =]

Nope! I don't work for them. I was just thinking how annoying it was to find all the information all over the website and decided it wouldn't take too long to put it into a thread. Next thing, 5 hours later and I've done no work at work other than put together this thread. Haha.

There's still more information to add to the list and correlate, and I will try formatting it a bit better as well but overall its a good start and getting all the information in one place.

Kudos on you for this big summary, is an excellent work. Keep it updated.

Will definitely try keep it updated. The next step will be to try source statements made on the forums from Ub3rgames and put them in a spoiler tag alongside the main Categories above.

So basically if anyone has information missing from the summary above please reply to this thread with that information, a link to the source of the information and then I'll include it in the summary above.

Nice summary. However, you should probably avoid describing some these proposed changes in first person (unless quoting), as it incorrectly implies that you are associated with @Ub3rgames and speak on their behalf.

Nice summary. However, you should probably avoid describing some these proposed changes in first person (unless quoting), as it incorrectly implies that you are associated with @Ub3rgames and speak on their behalf.

Indeed! It is implied that anything in the spoiler's are quotes. But I will additionally put quotes around those. Thanks for the feedback.

Great summary!As we are reworking the main website to be easier to read and straight to the point, this post comes at the perfect timing. It will keep details readable for those that are interested while we make the first impression easier.